Perry the Preteen
by Shwoo
Summary: Living as a human is giving Perry more problems than he'd anticipated. He's having more and more trouble hiding his identity, he's being bullied in school, and, worst of all, Doofenshmirtz keeps trying to give him fatherly advice.
1. The Jocks

Some kind of big author's notes:  
The story was inspired by reading a bunch of stories on deviantART with the premise that Perry was now living as a human. The beginning's particularly similar to Savoir by slash-source, because I was particularly inspired by that story. And because I didn't originally intend to post this. Sorry! It diverges afterwards, I promise!

This story is not slash, though. There's already enough conflict without adding romance as well. Besides, I prefer Perry and Doofenshmirtz as friends.

The characters are a bit older than I usually imagine them. They're about twelve. Since the only word on their age is that they're less than fifteen, I think that's plausible.

.

It was already too warm to be winter, but still too cool to be summer. The air smelled of flowers, even inside the school bus. And Phineas and Ferb were deep in one-sided conversation about the underwater circus they were planning for the weekend.

Candace, who got off three stops ahead at the high school, leaned over the back of their seat. "Could you guys go just one day _without_ doing something _impossible_?"

Phineas and Ferb looked around. "I wouldn't really call our projects impossible..." said Phineas slowly.

Candace jabbed her finger at the seat in front of her brothers. "You turned the family pet into the family... brother."

"Aw, Perry doesn't mind," said Phineas, completely missing Candace's point. "Right, Perry?"

Perry looked up from the book he was reading, twisted in his seat, and gave a thumbs up. He'd been human for good since the end of summer, and by now it felt almost normal. Almost. He didn't think it was even obvious that he was a platypus anymore, as long as nobody noticed that his eyes pointed in slightly different directions when he was relaxed. And he still slept on his stomach, with his arms and legs tucked beneath his body. It was much more comfortable than sleeping like a human.

The bus slowed down at the middle school.

"That's our stop!" said Phineas, and he and Ferb jumped off the seat and ran for the door.

Perry followed them. He didn't go out of his way to socialise with the children at his school, partly to reduce the risk of slipping up and saying something he shouldn't, so he usually hung around with his owners - with his brothers. They were his brothers now.

"Huh," said Phineas when they got outside.

He looked around. So did Ferb and Perry. Perry had been there for less than a year, not counting a few school assignment and show and tell incidents, but he had an excellent memory for faces, and he was sure he'd never seen a lot of those kids before.

Phineas hit himself on the head. "Oh, of course! They must be from that school that closed down last week!"

The school in question had made national news when it closed down. It had turned out that almost every writer for kids and teens in the country had used its students as templates for their characters. Apparently it had been the most drama and conflict friendly school in ten states. It was a huge scandal.

Phineas approached a group of boys their age. "Hi, I'm Phineas, and these are my brothers, Ferb and Perry. You look like you're new here." Perry didn't think the boys looked very friendly, but Phineas either didn't notice, or didn't care.

They other boys looked at them calculatingly. Perry looked back, pretending to be sleepy so that they wouldn't see how carefully he was sizing them up. Although Perry loved realistic young adult coming-of-age novels, he wasn't a big fan of kid sitcoms and movies set in high school. But he'd slept in front of the TV enough times to recognise a group of stereotypical bullying jocks when he saw them.

The one in front looked like a leader, and Perry didn't like the disdainful way he was looking at Phineas, or his stance. Perry's knuckles itched. They were big, but they were just kids. He could take them if they attacked. If he was careful enough not to show his true skills, his family would blame his fighting ability on the human transformation, like they had his understanding of English, general knowledge, and love of soap operas.

"You don't look like triplets," said the leader at last.

He was looking at Perry in particular, and Perry looked down at himself. It was probably his dark skin. His knowledge of race was vague, but he knew that skin colour didn't usually vary much between blood siblings.

Other than that, Perry thought his human form looked as much like Phineas and Ferb as they looked like each other. Maybe even more. He had a rectangular build like Ferb, and was short and had a pointy nose like Phineas, though his didn't take up his entire face. Humans didn't normally have teal hair like Perry did, but it was sort of close to Ferb's hair colour.

"Oh, we're not triplets," said Phineas. "Ferb and I are stepbrothers."

Ferb blinked.

"And Perry here used to be our pet platypus," continued Phineas.

The boys broke into laughter, and not the good kind.

"Freak!" said the leader, as all but one walked away.

Perry tried to retain an accurate memory of their faces. He wasn't personally bothered by the laughter and name calling, but it was often an early warning sign of future problems, and it was best to keep an eye on these people from as early as possible, before they could descend into full-fledged villainy.

The boy who'd stayed stared so intently at Perry that Perry looked at the ground. He didn't like being stared at. Being the centre of attention meant being recognisable, and being recognisable was dangerous in his line of work.

"If you're a platypus, why are you black?" said the boy quietly, when his friends were too far away to hear him.

He sounded curious and not sneering, so Perry opened his mouth. He had the feeling that the question was racist, but he didn't know why. Maybe a real human could tell him.

Phineas jumped in before Perry could say a word. "Platypuses are from Australia, of course! So we made him Australian Aboriginal!"

The kid stared at Perry some more, glanced around, and whispered "That's really cool!" Then he ran away.

Phineas looked uncertain. "Wow, they must have had a really bad time at their old school." He brightened. "So we need to give them the best welcome to Danville Middle School we possibly can!"

Perry wasn't certain he was following Phineas's logic. Did he think they were rude and disdainful because other people had been rude and disdainful to them? That sort of made sense. Being bullied could turn a person into a bully. Just look at Doofenshmirtz.

If that was what he was thinking, Perry hoped he was right. The school had quite a few bullies already, but none of them had the influence over others that the leader of this group seemed to have. Some of the weaker children could start hating school if these boys kept to their ways, and that wasn't right.

.

Over the next few weeks, Perry devoted a lot of his time at school to learning about the new students, in case they were dangerous or in danger.

The children s' fiction writers had taken a few liberties with the social structure, but there were still cliques. Four of them, based on popularity and, to a lesser extent, gender.

There were the popular girls, who Perry nearly thought of as future Candaces before he noticed how irredeemably nasty they all were. Then there were the goth girls, and Perry did think of some of them as future Vanessas. They moped around writing poetry and talking about how depressed and in pain they were, and alternated between getting picked on by the popular girls, and making offensive hand gestures at the popular girls. Both groups constantly pulled mean-spirited pranks on one another.

The boys that they'd met on the first day turned out to be the jocks, as Perry had suspected. Like the popular girls, their only interests outside of sport seemed to be picking on smaller and weaker kids. Mostly, they picked on the fourth group, the nerds, who didn't all appear to be very nerdy. They just weren't into sports.

Some nerds were female and some goths were male, but Perry still found himself thinking of the goths as the unpopular girls and the nerds as the unpopular boys. It was easier to put them into categories.

There were some other children from the school who weren't part of any of the cliques, and Perry suspected that the children s' writers used them as their main characters. But they assimilated into the rest of the school so quickly that he nearly forgot about them. They weren't dangerous.

The nerds were more or less harmless, as far as Perry could tell, and the goths were only dangerous to the popular girls. The popular boys and girls were the real problems. They were consistently nasty, like junior villains. Both groups had members who looked like they could be good kids if they stopped copying their leaders, but that didn't look like it was going to happen. They needed to spend some time away from each other. But they wouldn't do that willingly, and Perry couldn't think of an ethical reason to force them.

For now, Perry just kept an eye on the leaders. Phineas, Ferb and their group of friends were safe so far, probably because they were the most popular kids in their grade. And why shouldn't they be? They'd spent the summer making everything from a rollercoaster to a rock concert. But he knew that Brett, the leader of the jocks, felt threatened by them. Amanda, the leader of the popular girls, he was less certain about. Girls didn't hit as much, did they? In that case, they were probably less dangerous.

.

Perry thought about this during lunch in the cafeteria. He'd heard the jokes that the cafeteria food tasted like platypus food, but Perry was completely certain that it didn't. It was too bland, and not nutty enough. It was a shame. He would have liked it better otherwise.

Once he'd finished eating, he got up to leave, and noticed Brett and three of his friends get up as well. As soon as he got into the hallway, Brett and his friends accosted him. "Why were you staring at me?" Brett demanded.

Perry started. He couldn't remember where he'd been looking. As a platypus, he'd always switched off the outside world when he was thinking. It had got him into trouble as a human before. So he just looked at them with a confused expression on his face, hoping they'd elaborate.

"What are you, gay _and_ mute?"

Mute? Of course he could talk. He just didn't see the point most of the time. Brett was right about the other thing, though. "Yes. I am gay." He knew he'd slurred it a little, and probably put emphasis on the wrong words again, but he'd got his point across.

One of the boys gasped, and the other two laughed. Perry scowled. He knew he sounded strange, but he didn't sound that strange. He'd never understand twelve-year-olds and their aversion to basic politeness.

"You really are gay?" said Brett, between laughs. "This is..." Whatever it was so funny that he couldn't get to the end of the sentence without breaking into more laughter.

They were laughing because he was _gay_? Why? What was so funny about that? It didn't even matter. Perry took his work far too seriously to let himself get distracted by anyone, male or female. Besides, he looked like a kid and thought of himself as an adult. It was probably hard to get dates under those circumstances.

Brett stopped laughing for long enough to shove Perry against the wall, with surprising force. "Who do you think is hottest? Me, Tyler, or Dylan?" The mockery was obvious in his voice.

Perry considered this. He still couldn't figure out what Brett was making fun of him for, and the answer to his question was none of them, because they were all too children. "Ng... You." Maybe flattering him would calm him down. "But..."

That didn't seem to work. Brett put his face up close to Perry's and sneered. "You know what we do to homos?"

Perry said nothing. He obviously didn't understand the situation well enough to have any hope of defusing it now, so there was no point trying. Rolling his eyes at Brett's cliched tough guy lines probably wouldn't help either.

Brett shook him. "I said, do you?"

Perry concluded that this was going to end in violence, and thought it was only fair to warn him. "You don't want to fight me." At the same time, he took note of anything in the hallway that might be useful in a fight, and judged the distance to the nearest set of lockers, which offered a lot of convenient handholds and good vantage points. There was a very useful looking pole propped up against them.

Brett laughed again and drew back his arm to throw a punch.

Before he could finish the motion, Perry stamped on his foot hard and pulled away, keeping all the boys in sight. He raised his arms in a defensive posture.

The boys all charged at once, and Perry threw himself to one side. The floor must recently have been washed, because his shoes slid, which gave him an idea. He sprinted for the lockers and hauled himself up on top of them, as fast as he could. It was imperative that he do this before his attackers recovered. He turned around, grabbed the pole that was leaning against the lockers and jumped forward to see the boys running at him.

Perfect.

In midair, he dropped into a crouch and held out the pole parallel to the ground. He hit the floor and slid, knocking down all the boys as he did so.

Perry turned to check on his attackers. He didn't want to hurt them too badly. They were just kids.

The first thing he was saw was Ms Orange, his English teacher.

"What is going on here?" She didn't look happy.

Perry made a sound somewhere between a groan and a chatter. The situation was getting complicated. He liked it better when all he had to do was fight. At least the boys who'd attacked him looked okay.

Brett stood up, pointed at Perry and said "He attacked us!"

"Self-defence." Was all Perry said in reply.

"Perry, I'm surprised," said Ms Orange. "You were always so well behaved."

Perry didn't respond. He'd said all he needed to say.

Ms Orange turned on the other boys. "You boys don't surprise me at all. You've caused nothing but trouble since you came here. I don't know what you did to prompt one of the most well-behaved boys I've ever seen to attack you with a pole, but if he says it was self-defence, I believe him."

"He's not even a real person!" protested Brett. "He's a platypus! And- "

Ms Orange cut him off. "I don't want to hear it. After school detention. All of you." She looked at Perry. "You too, Perry. Self defence or not, fighting is against the rules."

Well that was a stupid rule. Not as stupid as "any and all parachute pants retrieved become immediate property of Major Monogram", but stupider than "all agents attending the yearly Christmas part must fill out an mandatory evaluation survey".

Still, rules were rules. Perry nodded. Then the implications hit him and he widened his eyes. He had a mission after school. He couldn't stay in detention. But he had to, or come under suspicion. So he nodded again.


	2. Consequences

Perry headed into the boys' bathroom. He had something to take care of before lunch finished.

To his relief, the room seemed to be empty, but he still looked around carefully, before turning both the taps on the closest sink the wrong way. He held them there and waited for a few seconds.

The sink moved into the wall, revealing a hole that was just big enough for Perry to squeeze into. He looked around again, climbed inside, and pressed the button to go down.

The secret base under the school didn't belong to anybody; it was one of the agency's temporary bases for agents who didn't have time to get to their own. Perry had used it before, and he didn't think it had been cleaned once since he'd become human. He always seemed to end up standing in cobwebs.

Perry reached the bottom, put on his hat, sneezed dust a few times, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim, flickering lighting.

Once he was confident that he could see, he turned on the view screen. At least that was working. Major Monogram appeared. "Ah, Agent P." He looked confused. "Uh... did something happen? You know you're not due for another couple hours."

Perry nodded. Of course he knew. "After school detention." One of the few benefits of being able to speak English was that he no longer had to resort to charades.

Major Monogram moved backwards, startled. "What? Agent P, I'm surprised! You're supposed to be a model student!"

Perry couldn't blame his boss for being so interested in what he did at school. It was part of his cover story, after all. "I was attacked. The rules say no fighting. Not even self defence. I didn't know." For him, it was a speech.

"But if you're in detention, then you won't be able to prevent Doofenshmirtz from perpetrating whatever hare-brained plot he's cooked up today!" said Major Monogram.

Perry said nothing. That much was obvious.

"This is exactly why I was against this whole transformation thing from the start," he added.

Perry seemed to recall him saying something about a "wonderful opportunity to expand the scope of the agency" and praising the extension of the working life of, in his own words, not Perry's, the best field agent they'd ever had. Though Perry wasn't sure that he wanted to stay human for long enough for that to become important.

"Hang on," said Major Monogram. "I'll call Doofenshmirtz and ask him to... put his scheme on hold until you get the chance to thwart him."

Perry waited patiently as his boss picked up a phone and started dialling. The sad thing was, this would probably work.

"Hello?"

Perry could hear Doofenshmirtz's voice clearly, though Major Monogram hadn't put him on speakerphone. He always spoke too loudly when he was on the phone.

"Uh, hello, Doctor Doofenshmirtz?" said Major Monogram.

"Oh." Doofenshmirtz sounded exasperated. "It's you."

"Agent P won't be able to make it to your thwarting today. He has detention."

Perry rolled his eyes. Doofenshmirtz didn't need to know that. All he needed to know was that Perry would be unavailable.

"Detention!" said Doofenshmirtz in surprise. "I... I thought he was a model student!"

Doofenshmirtz really didn't need to know so much about Perry's life. Perry was supposed to be undercover. His nemesis was the last person who should be getting clues to his identity.

"He says he got into a fight. I'm sure whoever he fought was behaving evilly enough that he thought it was... prudent."

"Ooh!" said Doofenshmirtz. He sounded excited, which meant that Perry had probably escaped being chastised for fighting somebody else. This time. "Put him on! I just can't get over how he can talk now. It's... amazing, is what is it."

Major Monogram looked at Perry and said "He wants to talk to you." He put the phone near the speaker.

Perry leaned over the microphone, took a deep, loud breath, and, very clearly, made a chattering noise.

"Oh, very funny," said Doofenshmirtz. "Very funny. Well, you won't be laughing this afternoon when I... Well, you'll just have to be there to be there, I guess. Come along when you get out of detention." He hung up.

Major Monogram looked at the phone. "He didn't say goodbye! That's really rude. Well, you heard him, Agent P. He'll wait until you get out of detention."

Perry saluted.

.

The detention room was also Perry's English classroom, which he hadn't known. In fact he only had a vague idea of what detention was. It was... some sort of punishment? For children? Like jail but shorter?

With his heart beating only slightly faster than usual, he opened the door.

The only person in there was the French teacher, Mr Patel. Perry didn't take French, so he didn't really know him. He was probably on... detention duty or something. Perry stood in the doorway and looked at him, unsure of what to do now.

"Perry Flynn-Fletcher?" said Mr Patel after a second.

Perry nodded.

Mr Patel indicated the desks in front of him. "Take a seat and don't make any noise."

Perry nodded again, closed the door, and sat down.

Now what?

He looked around, and wondered if it was okay to read in detention. He considered asking Mr Patel about it. Did that come under making noise? The only other option was his watch, which had Pong and Space Invaders, but he couldn't risk anybody seeing that.

Before he could come to a decision, the door slammed open and the jocks came in, talking loudly and laughing.

Mr Patel glared at them. "Sit. Down."

"Okay, whatever," said Brett, without bothering to look at him. He sat down right next to Perry.

Perry got up and moved to the other side of the room. Brett really needed a shower.

Brett followed him. "Aw, is little baby scared?"

Another boy laughed, and Perry gave Brett a look to convey how ridiculous that idea was.

Unfazed, Brett started making kissy lips at him, so Perry punched him in the solar plexus.

"Owww!" said Brett, doubling over and backing away. "You-"

"Settle down," said Mr Patel, in a bored voice.

It looked like no punishment for continuing to fight was forthcoming, but Perry didn't want to push it. He concluded that the best course of action was to ignore the jocks and take a nap, so that he'd be fresh for his mission. He glanced at Brett, who was now sitting with his friends and looking at him warily, cushioned his head with his arms and closed his eyes.

"Aw look, he's crying!" said one of the other jocks, mockingly.

Perry didn't bother to correct him. His main priority was sleep.

"Sissy!"

"Baby!"

"One who is markedly different to ourselves in appearance, abilities and personality, thus justifying our antipathy towards you!"

There was a brief pause.

"Shut up, Thompson," said Brett.

"Yes, Brett," said Thompson, in a meek voice.

.

The next thing Perry remembered was Linda's voice.

"Perry? Wake up!"

Perry snapped to alertness. He couldn't remember what he'd been dreaming about, but that fact that he'd nearly saluted gave him a hint.

Linda didn't look happy. "What's this I hear about you fighting?" She didn't look happy at all.

Perry was touched. More proof that she now considered him to be her son, even though he was a platypus.

He looked around. The classroom was empty, and he wondered how long he'd been asleep. "It was self defence," he slurred, standing up and taking his bag.

"Self defence, huh?" said Linda, as they walked out of the room. "Was the pole really necessary?"

"I didn't want to... badly hurt them. The pole knocked them down."

"And _why_ did you need to knock them down in the first place?" She was giving him the benefit of the doubt, Perry could tell. He'd seen what Linda was like when she was truly angry. He never wanted her to be truly angry with him.

"They attacked me," said Perry. After a second, he decided that more information was required, so he added. "Brett asked if I was gay. I said yes. He tried to punch me but I dodged."

Linda stopped walking, and Perry began to worry that he'd said too much. Why had he mentioned dodging? Now she was probably wondering how he knew so much about fighting.

"I had no idea you were gay," she said. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

Perry sagged with relief, but he was a bit confused. What did it matter? Were all humans like this about it? "It wasn't important."

"Oh Perry..." said Linda, sounding more affectionate than annoyed. She gave him a quick hug. "Just promise me you won't get into any more fights, okay?"

"Yes, mother," said Perry. He though of something, and added, "May I use defensive moves?"

"_No_ fighting."

Perry nodded.


	3. The Mission

That was a big break between chapters. I was busy with moving and getting Internet access and stuff. There shouldn't be such a big break between this and the next chapter, but I can't promise that. I can promise that it will get finished, because the first draft of the story is already done.

.

As soon as he got home, Perry walked as quickly to his room as he dared. He didn't want to run, in case it looked suspicious.

He shared the room with Phineas and Ferb, but the only obvious evidence that he lived there was the rumpled sleeping bag on the floor. It was a compromise. Perry had wanted to keep using his basket in the living room, but Linda and Lawrence had threatened to give him a real bed. He'd argued. There wasn't even room for another bed. But they'd been adamant that he not use his basket. So he slept in a cheap, easy to set up, yet acceptably human way.

Once he'd put his school bag away in the closet that he also shared with Phineas and Ferb, he put his left eye up against a small hole in the wall, and chattered.

"Retina and voice print acknowledged," said a female computer voice. "Prepare for dematerialisation."

Perry had just enough time to widen his eyes before there was a blinding flash of light, a slight pain, and he was in his base. He checked his hands to make sure that his fingers were on the right way, but everything seemed to be in order. He sighed. He hadn't used that entrance before, and he wouldn't have used it at all if he'd known that it involved teleportation. The agency's teleportation never went right. He'd heard stories.

Once Perry had had a look in a mirror and was satisfied that nothing had gone wrong this time, he turned on the screen.

"Ah, there you are, Agent P," said Major Monogram. From he emphasis he put on the word "there", he sounded like he was criticising Perry for being so late, but Perry didn't rise to the bait. "We don't have time to give you any background information for this mission. Doofenshmirtz is up to no good, and you need to get in there and put a stop to it!"

Perry saluted. That was more than enough information for him.

.

When Perry got to Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated, Doofenshmirtz was sitting in an armchair, reading a book. When he saw Perry standing in the doorway, he threw it down and jumped to his feet.

"Perry the Platypus. Punctual as always. And by punctual, I mean completely unpunctual!"

He produced a remote control, pressed a button, and a sticky pink liquid squirted at him, encasing his body and pinning him to the nearest wall. His legs were free, though.

Perry rolled his eyes. What was he supposed to do? Refuse to serve his punishment for breaking the rules? He pushed against the substance restraining him. It was too strong to break out from, but it wasn't stuck to the wall very securely.

Doofenshmirtz noticed him struggling and said "It's amazing what you can do with enough liquidised Silly Putty, isn't it?" He looked sheepish. "Don't... Don't ask me why I have so much. He pointed at a machine on the balcony, which looked more or less the same as all of the others, apart from the giant, fluffy earmuffs sitting on top. "Now behold! The Silencinator! You see, some new neighbours moved in downstairs last week, and all the time they play this awful modern music. Ugh. I mean, it's okay if it was just now and then, but they literally play it all the time. Listen!"

Perry listened. Faintly, he could hear the thumping of a bass speaker, but it didn't seem so bad.

"You may not think it's so bad now, but try having that at the edge of hearing for an entire week! No silence, just "thump thump thump thump" all the time! I could swear they turn it up at night. And then it started following me. At the grocery store, thump thump thump thump. At the beach! In the library! So I'm going to use the Silencinator on their entire floor so I never have to hear it again!"

Perry glared at him, and wondered if it had occurred to him to ask the people downstairs to turn down their music.

"Aren't you going to say something?" said Doofenshmirtz, walking up to him, though he kept out of kicking range. "'You'll never get away with this', or maybe, uh... Hmm..." He rubbed his chin, then gave up trying to think of something else. "Well, it's a classic. That's all I'm saying."

Perry kept his mouth shut. He'd never understand Doofenshmirtz's obsession with hearing him talk. It wasn't like he'd never spoken in front of him. The first human word he'd ever said had been "Doofenshmirtz", though he wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

"Oh well," said Doofenshmirtz. He walked to the Silencinator and pressed a button. "Now tremble, as... Uh..." Nothing seemed to be happening. "It takes a while to warm up, just hang on..."

Perry started to pull himself away from the wall, then stopped when Doofenshmirtz turned to face him. It was too risky to escape from this trap with Doofenshmirtz watching. He needed the element of surprise.

Doofenshmirtz rubbed his head awkwardly. "So... uh... While we're waiting, what's this I hear about you fighting other people?"

Perry stared at him. He didn't sound annoyed. He sounded... concerned. This was a disturbing development.

"Are you getting picked in school?" said Doofenshmirtz, in the tone of voice he normally only used with Vanessa. "Because you know, I could help. Just take my advice, if anyone tells you they'll stop if you ignore them, don't listen. It... It never works."

Perry said nothing. He wasn't a child, even if he looked like one. He could take care of himself. What was next, Doofenshmirtz switching "Perry the Platypus" for "Perry the Helpless Infant"?

Turn around, he thought. He could hear the Silencinator warming up. If Doofenshmirtz didn't turn soon, he'd have to break out in his line of sight.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, you know," continued Doofenshmirtz. "When I was a child growing up in Gimmelschtump... Well... as they say, kids can be so cruel."

Perry made his decision. If he was right, Doofenshmirtz would be surprised, and Perry would have the time he needed. "Some boys attacked me because I'm gay." He still didn't understand why humans thought it was so important, but if such diverse people as Brett and Linda had reacted to it, it was worth a try.

He was in luck. Doofenshmirtz looked surprised and took a few steps back. "What?"

Perry didn't waste any time. He pulled his bindings away from the wall, which took a few seconds, and dropped to the ground, rolling in the direction of the Silencinator.

Doofenshmirtz didn't chase him right away. "I... I guess it doesn't matter, but you could have at least hinted... I mean, kind of a big shock, finding out someone you've known so long is... Wait a second, Perry the Platypus, don't touch that!"

Perry had reached the power cord for the Silencinator and was trying to pull it out with his teeth. Once he'd done that, he threw himself to the ground a few times until the Silly Putty shattered and he was free.

Something flew at him, and he ducked and heard it shatter on the far wall. Immediately, he pushed the Silencinator outside and over the edge of the balcony.

"Nooooooooooooo-"

Everything suddenly went silent, cutting off Doofenshmirtz's overdramatic yell. Perry glanced around and confirmed that Doofenshmirtz's mouth was still open just as the sound of an explosion hit him, nearly knocking him down. He recovered to see Doofenshmirtz looming over him with a hand raised. He jumped out of the way just in time, and they were just facing each other angrily when there was a knock on the door.

"Uh... It's open?" called Doofenshmirtz uncertainly.

A large, angry looking man barged in. Perry had never seen him before.

The man launched into an enraged, profanity filled tirade. Perry had excelled in the English language back in training, but he didn't even know all the words that the man was using. It seemed that he was fed up with all the noise, said he was moving out, and was threatening to sue.

Perry looked at Doofenshmirtz, who was trying to interrupt, but not getting anywhere. Doofenshmirtz glanced at Perry and said "Cover your ears, Perry the Platypus."

Perry rolled his eyes.

Finally, the man stomped out again, slamming the door.

Doofenshmirtz laughed nervously. "That was... one of my new neighbours. I guess I win! See you tomorrow, Perry the Platypus!"

Perry looked at him until he was sure that it wasn't a trick, and jumped off the balcony, taking out his hang-glider halfway down.

.

When Perry got home, all he wanted to do was sleep some more. He was tired all the time these days. He missed being able to sleep whenever he wanted.

He wandered into the living room and sat on the couch next to Phineas and Ferb, trying to gather enough strength to do his homework.

The boys looked at him. "Oh, there you are, Perry," said Phineas.

Perry smothered a yawn, and chattered, making Phineas laugh.

"Ferb and I have been talking," he added. "And we think the jocks have gone too far."

Perry nodded. He knew it was because they'd attacked him, and he was touched by their concern, but he tried not to let it show on his face.

Phineas leaned back in the couch. "I just wish there was some way to stop them picking on everyone."

Perry wondered if he should tell them the conclusions he'd formed about the popular girls and the jocks. He didn't want to compromise his identity, but he couldn't stand seeing Phineas sad.

He didn't say anything, and eventually Phineas brightened up. "Oh well! We'll think of something!"

You always do, thought Perry.


	4. Bullies in the Library

Perry couldn't count. Actually, that wasn't exactly true. He understood the difference between a single thing and two things, and, if he thought about it, three things. Beyond that, it got hazy. He could recite numbers in perfect numerical order, but without doing that he had no idea whether or not twenty was greater than fifty, seventeen was greater than eleven, or four was greet than six. They were just words to him. With a lot of effort, he could add and subtract numbers up to sixteen, but it dropped to eight when he wasn't in a position to take off his shoes and socks.

While in training, Perry had been taught several tricks for handling money. For example, if something cost fifty dollars and he only had ten dollar notes, he could take the zero off the fifty and the tens and count out five tens. It worked, and Perry vaguely understood that it had something to do with multiplication, but it might as well have been magic, because he couldn't make any sense of it.

He'd been taken to several specialists after becoming human, and he'd eventually been diagnosed with dyscalculia, which was some sort of number related learning disability. By human standards he probably did have a learning disability, but he'd never known an animal agent who was any better at it. Humans were just expected to be better with numbers.

All this was why he was spending the period before lunch in the school library, instead of in pre-algebra class. He vaguely understood that what algebra was about, though he wasn't sure why there was a "pre" in front of it, and the idea of using letters in place of numbers made him feel like his head was about to explode. It made even less sense than normal math.

Perry browsed until he found a book with a dark, shadowy cover. This looked like his kind of thing. Realistic, which was apparently author code for "depressing". He liked a bit of drama, and adventure thrillers were like badly written versions of what he did every day. Emotional conflict was so much more interesting. It was like a soap opera in a book.

Perry sat down and started reading, wondering whose death was going to teach the main character an important lesson this time. The saintly disabled character? The gay character who got picked on a lot for... some... reason...

Perry's thoughts jammed, and he put the book down. All this time he'd thought the writers had been making things up to make their books more depressing, but it seemed that there really was a kernel of truth to it. He really didn't understand humans sometimes. What other ridiculous things did humans get upset about? Why didn't they just judge people based on whether or not they were evil, like he did?

Perry had just managed to dismiss the thought and get back into the book when somebody said "Hey, Flynn!"

Perry looked up. It was Brett, holding a roll of duct tape and wearing an expression that was probably supposed to be menacing.

"Flynn-Fletcher," said Perry. His new surname wasn't that hard to remember.

Brett shoved him. "Don't correct me, you retard."

Perry rocked back on his chair, then returned it to the ground. He'd promised, no more fighting. But it was very tempting.

"You shouldn't even be here," continued Brett. "You can't speak, you can't count, you're not even human. Why aren't you drooling over in retard school?"

Perry gave him a platypus level blank look. Brett was doing a good job of insulting people with intellectual disabilities, but he wasn't succeeding in insulting Perry.

Brett grabbed Perry's hand and forced it onto the table. "Now listen up, retard. We're gonna play a little game. It's called hide and seek." He used his free hand to start to taping Perry's hand down. "You hide, and your friends seek." He taped his other hand.

Perry watched him with a detached interest. So this was bullying. He wondered if this was the kind of thing that had made Doofenshmirtz's childhood so emotionally scarring. He could see how it might upset a vulnerable child, so it was good that Brett was targeting Perry instead.

"Do you like this?" said Brett. "Do you?"

"Not really," said Perry. What a strange question. He did stay in traps longer than he had to, but not because he liked it. Playing along with the villain until they'd revealed their evil schemes was one of the first things he'd been taught to do as an agent. Besides, Brett didn't know about that.

Brett punched him, though not hard, then went behind him and taped his legs to the chair. "I've heard about you," he said. "You go missing every day, and your "brother" wonders where you are, but he doesn't worry because you always come back." He finished taping his legs and hauled him, the table and the chair towards a storeroom.

Perry was impressed by his strength. It was a good thing he hadn't let Brett punch him the day before.

Brett taped Perry's mouth closed, then pushed him into the storeroom. "I wonder how long it'll take before they start worrying." He closed the door, and Perry heard a key turn in the lock.

Perry sighed through his nose. He didn't know much about bullying, but that kind of thing was classic budding supervillain behaviour. He'd even got a key from somewhere, and it probably wasn't a coincidence that there were no witnesses around. He was tempted to report Brett to the OWCA right then, but maybe there was still hope for him, with some rehabilitation. He was still young.

But the first thing he had to do was get out of this.

Perry tried to give the room a quick scan, but it was too dark to see anything. Since he wasn't on a mission, he didn't have any gadgets with him, so he'd have to make do with what he had. He was just seeing how much control he had over the chair when a raspy voice said "You too, huh?"

Perry had unfocused his eyes and got halfway into the closest thing he could get to a four legged posture before he remembered that it wasn't necessary anymore. "Buford?" he tried to say, straightening up. It sounded like Buford.

"Yeah, it's me," said Buford. He was somewhere at the back of the room.

Perry found a sharp edge on the desk, and used it to rip the tape over his mouth. "Are you all right? Are you tied up?" Perry didn't like having to speak so much, but it was so dark that his usual technique of staring at someone until they felt uncomfortable was out of the question.

"Oh, I'm tied up, all right," said Buford, in a way that made it obvious that he wasn't. "Tied up in my heart. I remember when I was the biggest bully around. Remember when I put a toilet over that kid's head last year?"

There was a long pause. Finally, Perry filled it with "No, Buford, I was a platypus then."

"Oh," said Buford. "Yeah. Point is, I was the best bully on the block. Kids would run screaming for miles whenever they saw Buford coming. And now those guys show up, and I lose all my bully cred. I... I'm just not a threat next to them." He began to cry loudly.

Perry had identified Buford as another potential villain, but had concluded that it would be easy to persuade him to work on the side of good if the need arose.

He waited for Buford to stop crying, but he didn't. So he said "Don't cry, Buford. Evil can always be defeated." Then he winced. Why had he mentioned evil? It wasn't even evil, it was just petty kids' stuff.

Buford didn't seem to have noticed Perry's mistake. "You... You really think so?" At least he'd stopped crying now.

"Yes," said Perry. "Get this tape off me and we can..." he trailed off. He had to remain distant. If he involved himself too much, it might put him under suspicion. "Phineas and Ferb will be able to help." That was safer. And they were very bright kids, so maybe they really would be able to do something.

"Yeah!" said Buford. He crossed the room and started ripping the tape off Perry's hands and arms. Perry stayed still and tried not to wince. It was better to have skin under there than fur, but it still hurt. Then he leaned down and untaped his legs while Buford rattled the doorknob. "It's locked. Looks like we're stuck in here."

Perry, whose eyes were beginning to adjust, shook his head and produced a length of wire from his pocket. He bent it until he was satisfied with the shape, and inserted it into the keyhole.

After a few seconds, he opened the door, and Buford said "Whoa. Where'd you learn to pick locks so good?"

Perry only hesitated for a second. "Ng... Correspondence course."

Buford seemed to accept that, to Perry's relief, and they pulled the table and chair out of the storeroom and started dragging it back to where it had been.

"Hey," said Buford suddenly. "What's a goody-two-shoes like you doing cutting class?"

"Severe dyscalculia," said Perry. Remembering that Buford was young and that English wasn't his strong point, he added "I have a learning disability. I can't count. I have permission." He put down the chair and indicated the library.

Buford grunted. "Wish I had whatever you said."

He didn't, but Perry said nothing.

.

Sometimes Perry had lunch with Phineas and Ferb and their friends, and sometimes he ate alone. Today Perry preferred not to eat alone in case Brett tried something else. His attempts to get under Perry's skin were so pathetic that he was almost getting embarrassed for him.

As soon as Perry sat down, Phineas stood up and said "It's time we stopped the bullies once and for all!"

Everyone at the table agreed, except for Buford, who said "Except me!"

Phineas sat down and conceded, "Except Buford."

Isabella raised her hand. "How are we going to do that, Phineas?"

"Ferb?" said Phineas, giving his stepbrother the floor.

Ferb cleared his throat, but before he could say anything, Irving rushed over to the table.

"Did you guys say something about stopping the bullies?" he said quickly.

"Except me!" interjected Buford.

Irving ignored him. "Irving's your man! I don't even wanna talk about how many underpants I've been through at the hands of those Neanderthals!"

Phineas looked at him. "Well... the more the merrier! Sit down, Irving."

Irving sat down in the empty seat next to Perry, shivering with excitement.

Ferb cleared his throat again, and unrolled a blueprint on the table titled "Awesome Deluxe Zeppelin Rides".

"We're gonna offer rides on that thing on the weekend and invite everyone at school!" said Phineas.

Perry couldn't see how that was going to help. A bit of fun wasn't going to stop them from picking on kids. Picking on kids was already fun to them, or they wouldn't be doing it.

Apparently Isabella agreed. "Uh, that sounds fun, Phineas, but what does it have to do with bullying?"

"That's the best part," said Phineas. "We ban all bullying while the tour is in progress. That way the new kids have to be nice to each other!"

Perry didn't think that that would work, but it was better than doing nothing.

"Hmm... okay!" said Isabella.

"I would support it!" said Baljeet.

Irving was too excited to say anything.

"Okay!" said Phineas. "We'll meet at my place on the weekend and build that zeppelin. But first, we should hand out flyers so everyone knows about it. Perry?"

Perry smiled and gave a thumbs up. He was good at design, or so he was told.

"And I will check the math on your blueprints," said Baljeet, pulling the blueprints towards him.

"I'll get the Fireside Girls to help with the building," put in Isabella.

"And I'll stand around looking menacing!" said Buford, folding his arms and glaring at his lunch.

Irving looked even more excited. Perry edged away from him slightly.

Phineas looked at Irving. "And... Why don't you spread the word about the zeppelin rides, Irving?"

"Me?" said Irving, his eyes going wider than his glasses. He saluted sloppily. "I won't let you down!"

Isabella leaned over to him. "You're not gonna tell everyone that Phineas and Ferb are doing it to stop the bullying, are you?"

Irving pulled out a pencil and paper. "Don't... talk... about..."

Perry sighed. Having Irving involved was a risk he wasn't sure they could take. Then he sighed again. He was taking the project too seriously. It was just petty kids' stuff. If it worked out, it worked out. If not, it wasn't important. It was only important if the people involved went onto a life of crime, and it was too soon to tell one way or another.


	5. Annoyances

(I'm sorry updates are so slow, but this story will be finished. The first draft was finished before I posted the first chapter, so no matter how slow I am at editing, the story will be finished. Hopefully sooner rather than later)

"Hey, Perry!" called Irving.

Perry jerked in his seat, accidentally drawing a big line over the flyer that he was designing on Ferb's laptop. He hit the undo button and turned around. Unless Linda and Lawrence had adopted Irving in the last few hours, he was definitely not supposed to be in Perry's house.

"Isn't so great that we're working together?" said Irving.

Perry looked pointedly at the door.

Irving didn't seem to notice. "Hey, wanna see my collection of photos of you?" He took out a large stack of photos and flipped through them.

Perry was a little disturbed. Intellectually, he was concerned that the photographs constituted a possible security threat, and surprised that Irving's obsession with Phineas and Ferb extended to him, but emotionally he was just... disturbed.

The photos themselves were not particularly interesting. Almost all of them showed the back of his head, except for a few where he was napping instead. Perry tried not to yawn. Seeing himself sleeping made him so tired that he began to consider taking a nap right then. Irving was so absorbed in the photos that he probably wouldn't even notice.

Then he saw the flash of a familiar shade of brown.

Perry tried to keep his voice casual. "Ng... Caisifpgan?" he slurred in a perfectly casual tone, and winced. He was very lucky to be dealing with an oblivious child, not a suspicious adult. "Can I see that photo again?" he repeated, more clearly.

Irving immediately went back to the last photo, looking thrilled.

Perry inspected it. It had been taken outdoors, probably in the middle of the city. Someone's hand was visible on the right side of the frame, but the only identifiable person in the picture was Perry. Like the other photos, it showed the back of his head. Unlike the other photos, he was wearing his fedora and driving down the street in his scooter.

"That is one cool hat," said Irving, and Perry realised that he'd been staring at the picture in a daze.

He cleared his throat. The only good thing about this was that Irving didn't seem to realise what he was looking at, but Perry couldn't just sit back and hope that nobody else saw the photo and that Irving never figured it out. He cleared his throat again. "It's not me," he said at last. "It's... someone else. Throw it... Give it to me and I'll get rid of it." Perry needed to take it off him as soon as possible. Leaving it to Irving was like leaving it to chance.

Irving looked closely at the photo. "But it looks so much like you..."

Perry pointed at the top of his head. No hat.

"Well..." said Irving, looking at the photo again, "If you say so... Sure looks like you, though..."

Perry held out his hand, and Irving gave him the photo. Perry put it in his pocket, and glanced at the clock to see if he had time to destroy it before his mission. Then he widened his eyes. He had no time to do anything before his mission. Hastily, he saved his work, hopped off his chair and left the room.

Irving followed, grinning. "I always wondered where you wander off to."

Perry stopped short and looked around.

Irving was actually hugging himself. "Go on!" he giggled. "Don't be shy. Just pretend I'm not here."

He wasn't getting it, so Perry had to put it in words. "I would like to be alone." If Irving wasn't suspicious about Perry's reaction to the photo, he wouldn't be suspicious about this, he hoped.

Irving giggled. "Aw, I won't get in the way, I promise!"

Perry came to a decision and walked up the stairs. Irving's inquisitiveness was a serious problem. He'd have to take measures against it when he had more time.

"Oh boy!" said Irving, still close behind.

Perry felt bad about barging into Candace's room when he knew that she didn't want him in there, but it was all he could think of on short notice. So he rattled her doorknob to warn her in case she was talking to a piece of sacking Jeremy's face on it again, opened the door, and went inside.

"Perry!" yelled Candace, clutching the textbook she was reading to her chest. "How many times have I told you..." She looked at Irving. "Hey, aren't you that weird kid who keeps following my brothers around?"

While her attention was on Irving, Perry crept to the window and jumped out. Just as he hit the bushes below, he heard Irving say "Ooh! I love your room! Just let me get my camera out!"

Perry stood up, checked to make sure he hadn't injured himself, and went for the side of the house entrance. There'd be trouble over this later, he knew. He made a mental note to make some plans in case this sort of thing came up again.

.

His job done, Perry climbed onto a window and was about to blast off when Doofenshmirtz yelled "Wait!"

Perry turned. Doofenshmirtz was still buried up to his neck in the giant pot of soil in which he'd been trying to grow tree monsters. The battle was over. Doofenshmirtz had already cursed him.

"I... I've been thinking a lot about what you told me yesterday, and... did you just make it up to distract me?"

Perry came back inside and looked at him blankly. What was he talking about?

"You know, that stuff about being picked on and being gay..."

Oh, that. Perry gave a curt nod. He tried to be honest whenever possible, and if, after all this time, Doofenshmirtz thought he was weak and helpless for any reason, that was his own problem.

"You did make it up?"

Perry shook his head.

"Oh, you didn't?"

Exasperated, Perry nodded.

"You did?"

Perry rolled his eyes. "It's true," he said.

"Oh..." said Doofenshmirtz. He cleared his throat nervously. "Well, I just want you to know, if, you know, you need anyone to talk to, I'm here."

Perry stared at him. Confide in Doofenshmirtz? If he really needed to confide in someone, and he didn't, he'd talk to someone who wasn't a complete idiot. And who wasn't his enemy.

Doofenshmirtz went on. "The preteen, early teen years... they're a tough time for kids. It's hard, you know, going through puberty, figuring out who you are, hiding in the boiler room after the tough kids stole your best lederhosen again... Ooh, I hate them so much!"

Perry raised an eyebrow. Maybe, if he was lucky, Doofenshmirtz would keep rambling on about his childhood and forget what he was saying. Perry should never, ever have told him anything about his life.

Unfortunately, Doofenshmirtz found his way back to the point almost immediately. "Just, uh... those boys who attacked you. Did they hurt you? Did they do anything else to you? If you want I could go... I don't know, Away-inate them for you."

"Don't do evil on my behalf," said Perry, as forcefully as he could. The thought made him sick.

"No, of course not," muttered Doofenshmirtz. In a more normal tone, he added "Well, uh, are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

Perry shook his head. He didn't need to talk about it. What had happened earlier that day bothered him a little bit; he hadn't expected danger from a young boy, but he didn't need to talk about it. Especially not to his nemesis.

"Okay," said Doofenshmirtz. "Curse you, Perry the Platypus." He sounded like he had a lot on his mind, and it probably didn't include freeing himself from the pot before he starved to death.

Perry climbed out the window again. On a whim, he looked back in and said "A boy taped me to a desk and locked me in a storeroom." Then, without waiting for a reaction, he jumped out and activated his jetpack.

Why had he said that? Doofenshmirtz didn't need to know. It'd just make things worse.

But he still felt a bit better.


	6. Time to Eat

(I've been dead-ish because I've been exhausted ever since school started a few weeks ago. I think I might have the solution, but I need to test it over more days. It involves the radical new concept of going to bed earlier. Also, I'm using Twitter now if you're interested in status updates. My name's shw00, link's in my profile)

.

Perry stopped at the mall on the way home. He needed a drink to clear his head.

When he got to his favourite cafe, instead of entering right away he flattened himself against the wall and peeked inside, a necessary precaution to ensure that nobody from his other life saw him. Almost immediately, he whipped his head back and froze. Brett. And his friends. He absolutely could not risk being seen by them, with or without his hat.

He stayed against the wall and considered his options. The safest choice was to forget the drink and go straight home, but he was reluctant to miss out on such a perfect opportunity to do some proper spying. It was likely to be worth it because, strangely, every one of the conversations he'd heard were about bullying other kids, with very occasional mentions of sport. It was strange, but Perry encountered stranger things every day, so he didn't worry too much about it.

He looked around to make sure nobody was paying attention to him, reached into his pocket, and enclosed his fingers around a small metal cylinder with a button on top. Pressing the button would turn him back into a platypus. Pressing it again would turn him human. Phineas and Ferb had given it to him when he'd decided to live as a human full time, in case he changed his mind or missed being a platypus. Though he did use it when he felt homesick for his platypus body, it got more use during missions. It had got him out of a surprising amount of difficulties.

He pressed the button, and after a second of disorientation he felt... Almost exactly the same, but a little lighter and a lot furrier. Everything did look a bit higher up, but if he hadn't been paying attention, he would probably not have even noticed. His human body was about Phineas's height, but his platypus body wasn't much shorter. Most of the size difference was in width, not length.

Perry walked into the cafe, hopped onto a stool, and chattered to get the attention of the young woman at the counter. He liked this cafe. Nobody ever commented on the strangeness of a platypus coming in and acting like a human.

"Another strawberry milkshake?" said the young woman, who'd served Perry before.

Perry nodded, and handed over more than enough money to cover it. He could barely comprehend numbers with one digit, let alone the three that transactions like this required, so he had no way of knowing if he'd been short-changed, but he didn't care. He was paid under minimum wage, but it was still plenty for his needs.

Once he'd got his milkshake, he sat and listened.

After a few seconds, the voices of the jocks filtered through.

"You're right, Brett," said the smallest jock, who Perry vaguely remembered was named Jason. "But we can't do anything about it, right? I kinda like not being the king of school anymore."

Someone thumped the table. Brett, maybe?

"No! There's always a way." That was definitely Brett. Perry would recognise his voice anywhere. "All we gotta do is make that Phineas loser and his loser friends respect us."

Convenient topic of conversation, as always.

"He's not a loser, he's too popular," said a boy whose voice Perry recognised from detention. "A loser is someone who..."

Another thump, and it wasn't the table this time.

"Shut up, Thompson! Do you want to go on probation again?"

"Sorry..." mumbled Thompson.

"We need to hit something he cares about," continued Brett. "Then maybe he'll think twice about disrespecting us!"

The other boys made raucous noises of agreement.

"His friends!" said Brett. Perry couldn't tell if he was yelling out of enthusiasm or to be heard over the others. "We'll make his friends' lives Hell!"

Perry frowned. They wouldn't be doing that if he could help it. It was one thing to pick on Perry, but he'd never let them hurt his adoptive family. Or Isabella. Or Baljeet. or Irving, he guessed. Buford could take care of himself.

The other boys loudly agreed again. Then Jason said "Including the crazy kid who attacked us with a pole?"

"Especially him!" yelled Brett. The cafe went quiet, and after an awkward pause, he continued in a softer voice, though not so much that Perry couldn't hear him. "That gay retard thinks he can walk around like a normal person. We gotta teach him."

"I don't..." said somebody whose voice Perry hadn't yet memorised.

"He's an easy target!" said Brett, his voice beginning to increase in volume again. "All he does is sleep and read."

Perry rolled his eyes, and hunched further over his milkshake. If Brett thought he was an easy target, his secret identity was safer than he'd thought.

"Yeah!" said Jason.

"Sleep and read!" said the boy who'd expressed doubts a few seconds earlier.

"The best part is, he's just an animal!" said Brett. "We could murder him and the teachers and the cops wouldn't care!"

Perry narrowed his eyes.

"Isn't animal cruelty against the la-"

"Shut _up_, Thompson!"

Perry had heard enough. And he'd finished his milkshake. He jumped off the stool and left the cafe, covering his face with his hand as he walked passed the jocks' table. They probably wouldn't recognise him in platypus form, but there was no point taking chances.

.

Perry toyed with his dinner. He'd finished all his meat, and he still wasn't sold on the idea of vegetables. Fruit he liked. There was sugar in fruit. Broccoli was just kind of bland and unappetising. And he would have been happy if all bell peppers spontaneously ceased to exist. He'd try to get them back and beat up the person responsible, of course, but on a personal level, it would only be an improvement.

Besides, he still wasn't sure if he should tell Phineas and Ferb what he'd overheard. Telling them that he'd been at the mall spying might raise uncomfortable questions, and he could easily protect them from any danger. But he wouldn't always be there to help. He should tell them. They were capable kids. They'd be fine if they were prepared. But what if they wondered how he knew?

"So..." said Lawrence, to break the silence that had been building up, "How was everybody's day at school? Your mother and I had a smashing day at the antique store. A shipment of tin belly button rings just came in! They date from ancient Cornwall, you know."

"That's great, dad!" said Phineas, and he sounded like he really meant it. "We're going to offer zeppelin rides this Saturday!"

Linda chuckled. "The imagination on you."

Candace speared a piece of broccoli with her fork. "They're really gonna do it, you know. They're gonna take all their little friends up in a zeppelin, and it'll fly around and... I don't know... launch into space or something."

Ferb started scribbling in a notebook, but Linda didn't look like she was listening.

Candace gave a growl of frustration and pointed across the table at Perry. "Look at Perry!"

Linda turned her head. "I'm looking."

Perry looked down.

"The boys turn him into a human, you _adopt_ him, and you still don't believe me?"

Candace tried this tactic at least once a month, and more usually once a week. Perry occasionally wondered when she'd give it up, but he admired her persistence. She'd finally stopped asking for his version of events, though. She'd asked many, many times, and he'd always told her the same thing: that he'd been napping, which was true, and that he'd heard Phineas talking but hadn't understood the words, which was not true.

They'd been at a junkyard, and the ground had been invitingly warm and comfortable. He'd heard Phineas talking to Ferb about fixing something, but he'd hadn't really been listening, so it had come as a shock when they'd picked him up and put him in a machine. It had come as a much greater shock when he'd come out in a different body, but since then he'd become attached to his human form.

Apparently, once she'd got over the initial surprise, Linda had assumed that the machine had been intact when the boys had found it. She never seemed to see anything they made, and Perry wished that he could tell her how brilliant her sons were, but he had to maintain his cover. Despite his hat and his ability to understand English, Perry was still a platypus, and he'd never forgotten how to think like one. A normal platypus would not have even realised that the sounds the humans were making was speech, so Perry maintained that he'd never understood a word.

But it was such a shame.

"We just want the bullying to stop," Phineas was saying, in a slightly dejected tone of voice. "It's gotten really bad since that other school closed down."

"Tell me about it," said Candace, with her mouth full. She swallowed. "I used to think all those TV shows about the really popular but really mean girls were totally unrealistic..." she paused, and corrected herself. "Sort of unrealistic, but now there's this group of girls who are just like that. They act like they're popular, but they're really not. _I'm_ more popular than they are."

Perry was under the impression that Candace was quite popular, after everything she'd done over the summer, but maybe he was mistaken.

"That's just how the new girls at our school are," said Phineas. "I think."

Linda sounded concerned. "Are they picking on any of you kids? Were they the boys who attacked Perry yesterday?"

"Today they locked him in a storeroom," said Phineas, with his usual enthusiasm. "But he was okay, weren't you, Perry?"

Perry nodded, and stuck a slice of pepper in his mouth, trying his best not to taste it.

"They did what?" said Linda, her eyes widening.

Perry swallowed the still mostly unchewed pepper. Reassuring Linda was worth the stomach ache. "It's nothing. Buford was there."

"He said you picked the lock!" said Phineas.

Perry stopped himself from wincing. He was beginning to think that he'd be lucky if his cover lasted another year. Or another week. It was so much harder as a human.

Ferb unintentionally came to his rescue. "Platypuses may well be the world's best lock pickers."

"Science never really explored that possibility," said Phineas, then grinned. "I know what we're gonna do on Sunday!"

"I'm gonna call the school," said Linda.

Perry shook his head. "I'm fine, mother," He didn't want to attract attention of any kind, or waste the school staff's time on things that didn't matter. Then he took a deep breath. It was best if he told them. It wasn't fair to put them in danger just to keep his secret. "But I heard them talking about harassing the boys. They think they don't respect them."

Phineas looked upset. "I wonder why they think that. We've never done anything to them. Have we, Ferb?"

Ferb looked thoughtful, then indicated that they hadn't.

Phineas didn't look reassured.

Perry had lost his appetite. His secret seemed to be safe, but he didn't like making Phineas sad.

"Okay, I'm definitely calling the school," said Linda. She looked at Perry, who was pushing his food around the plate. "Eat your vegetables, Perry."


	7. Friday

(The swearing's already pretty toned down from what I remember at that age, so I won't tone it down further, but I will warn that this chapter contains a homophobic slur)

.

Perry spent Friday on high alert.

By lunch he'd witnessed plenty of name-calling and insults, but no attacks. For some reason the jocks had been throwing little balls of paper at him all day, but he didn't know where that fell on the bullying spectrum. Perry had no idea what Linda had said to the school, but maybe it had worked. Things were tense, but not dangerous.

Perry scanned the cafeteria for trouble, refusing to let his guard down.

"Um, excuse me? Perry?" said Baljeet, behind him.

Perry jumped and whirled around, unable to stop himself from adopting an offensive posture.

Baljeet cringed back.

"Apologies," said Perry, forcing himself to relax. It was strange that he'd been approached by one of the few people who was still uncomfortable around him. He preferred not to make innocent people uncomfortable, though it was a little bit reassuring to know that at least one person remembered that he was a platypus.

Baljeet composed himself and cleared his throat. "It has come to my attention... that you are a skilled bully-wrangler," he said formally, holding his hands behind his back.

Bully-wrangler?

"Therefore, I request from you a protective escort to the principal's office."

Perry looked at him for a second while he tried to figure out what to say. He didn't like that Baljeet knew about his fighting ability, but it was too late to contain that information now. "What about Buford?" he said. Buford normally protected Baljeet from other bullies. Perry really didn't understand their relationship sometimes.

Baljeet dropped the air of formality. "Lately, Buford has... not been himself. He did not even come to school today!"

That sounded normal for Buford, but Perry just nodded. Yes, he'd escort Baljeet to the principal's office.

So they walked in silence, for about five seconds.

"You really cannot count?" said Baljeet, in an amazed voice.

The real amazing thing was how well most humans could count. "No," said Perry.

"Then... how do you define pi?"

Pi was some sort of mathematical thing that television characters used as shorthand for "smart". That was all Perry knew about it. "I don't."

Baljeet sounded even more amazed, like that was more unthinkable than not knowing how to count. "Do you not understand what it is for?"

Perry shook his head, and wondered if they were at the principal's office yet. Unfortunately, they were not.

"It is the ratio of the circumference of a perfect circle to its diameter!" said Baljeet. His voice was getting loud.

What Perry got from that was that it was something to do with circles. But only the best ones. He knew what circumferences and diameters were, but he didn't see what they had to do with each other, or why it was so important.

Perry thought he heard quiet voices and laughter from behind him, and tried to block Baljeet out. The people were obviously behind him, and they sounded like they were trying not to be heard. He picked up the word "nerds", and instantly tensed up. It wasn't necessarily the jocks, but he couldn't rule them out.

After a second's thought, he turned around and looked at them. It was two jocks, Thompson and another, smaller boy whose name Perry wasn't sure of.

"He's looking at us," whispered the smaller boy. "What do we do?"

Perry waved at them. Did they really think he couldn't hear them?

"Perry, are you listening to me?" said Baljeet, sounding exasperated.

Perry held up a hand and pointed behind them.

Baljeet turned. "Why can I not go more than five minutes without being followed around by you people?" he demanded.

The smaller boy recovered quickly. "More like, why can you not go more than five minutes without cruising for a bruising?" he said, pounding his fist into his palm.

People actually said "cruising for a bruising". This was almost as disturbing a development as Perry being the target of Doofenshmirtz's concern.

"Not so brave without your boyfriend to protect you, are you?" continued the smaller boy, despite Baljeet not looking any more frightened he normally did.

"I thought he was the one who was gay," said Thompson, pointing at Perry.

The smaller boy turned on him. "Who says they can't both be gay?"

"Tokenism... that's who," replied Thompson, cringing slightly.

Baljeet and Perry began to walk away.

"Hey!" yelled the smaller boy. "We're not done with you!"

They ignored him. They weren't pursued.

Perry was pleased. If this kept up, it was possible that the jocks would self-destruct on their own.

.

Perry stayed behind a bit late that day, to make sure that everyone got out of school without being harassed. By the time everyone was out, the bus was long gone, so he walked home. The route he took went between houses and past a playground. It was nicer than taking the sidewalk.

Now that the school day was over, he began to relax again. He'd be exhausted tomorrow if he didn't get any calm time before his mission. Especially after Baljeet had tried to explain quaternions to him, whatever they were. So he was taken completely by surprise when he was suddenly tackled by two boys. He struggled, but they held him down, pushing his face into the dirt. He couldn't tell who'd attacked him, but he could take a guess. He'd been careless.

"Let him up," said Brett.

The weight was lifted from Perry's head, allowing him to look around. He glared up, into Brett's mocking eyes. Yes, supervillain was looking more and more probable as Brett's future career. The bucket he was holding was probably sinister as well.

"You shouldn't walk home alone, you know," said Brett, with mock concern. "It's dangerous."

Perry rolled his eyes. Stupid clich d villain - bully - stuff. Twelve-year-old boys weren't dangerous. If he hadn't promised not to fight, he could have got out of this situation easily.

Brett reached into the bucket and pulled out a juicy looking worm, which he held in front of Perry's face. "Look what I brought for you. A nice, big worm. You like worms, right? Animal?"

Perry didn't let his puzzlement show on his face. They were bullying him by... making him eat worms? He was a platypus. They knew he was a platypus. It was like bullying a human by making them eat a hamburger.

Brett pinched Perry's nose until he opened his mouth to breathe, and dropped the worm in. It tasted good, and despite the circumstances, Perry chewed it and swallowed.

There was a lot of laughter. "He _likes_ it!"

Perry continued to glare. Of course he liked it. What did they expect?

The jocks took turns holding him down and feeding him worms for a while. It was dull, more than anything else. Their taunts were uninspired, and the worms weren't bad quality. If they were trying to humiliate him, they were doing a terrible job.

Finally, the two boys holding him down hauled him to his feet. Seeing that Brett was about to throw a punch, Perry twisted out of the way, and Brett hit one of his friends instead.

"Ow! You hit me!"

"Shut up," said Brett. He looked around. "Where did he go?"

Perry watched from the branches of a nearby tree. To his surprise, he was feeling tired. Fatigue was nothing new to him, but never got tired during a confrontation. Maybe it was because they were just kids. He smothered a yawn, then looked again.

Brett was standing at the base of the tree, looking right at him. "Why don't you come down, fag?"

Perry wasn't familiar with the word Brett had used, unless he was secretly British and calling him either a cigarette or a younger boy at a 20th century boarding school who acted as a servant to an older boy. He suspected that it was a reference to either his sexuality, his intelligence, or his skin colour. It was unlikely to be a platypus related insult. Perry didn't know any platypus related insults, and he was one.

Perry yawned. He really was tired. He shut his eyes, then quickly opened them again. He couldn't fall asleep now. But he was so tired. He had to at least get home, and then he could nap until his mission. He stood and ran to the end of the branch, then jumped off and rolled when he hit the ground. But when he got up, he stumbled, fell, and sank into unconsciousness.

"Agent P... Come in, Agent P... Are you there?"

Perry woke up from a confused dream involving Candace threatening the Tri-State Area by punching numbers on her cell phone and giggling. He ached all over.

"Respond if you can, Agent P... I'm beginning to worry. I mean, Carl is beginning to worry."

It was coming from his watch. Perry forced his eyes open and sat up. Now he could tell why he ached. He was bruised all over.

He was lying on the grass where he'd fallen. It was sunset, and what he could see of the sky was a brilliant orange, which worried him. How long had he been out for? Had they drugged him? They must have drugged him. He'd been even more careless than he'd thought.

"Agent P? Hello?"

Perry looked around to make sure nobody was watching, and lifted his watch to his mouth. He chattered.

"Oh!" said Major Monogram. "Agent P! I've been trying to contact you for at least an hour."

Perry wondered if he'd sat around saying his codename into the microphone for the entire hour. He wouldn't put it past him. Then he widened his eyes. He had been asleep for too long. He'd missed his mission assignment. And his mission. "I apologise, sir," he said into his watch. "I was asleep."

"This is no time to take a nap, Agent P! While you were sleeping, Doctor Doofenshmirtz..." Major Monogram put his head in his hands briefly. "...No, it's too horrible to say."

Perry waited apprehensively.

"He turned the sky bright orange!" Major Monogram managed.

Perry looked up. It wasn't just the horizon. The entire sky was bright orange. He looked back at his watch. "Again, sir, I apologise. I believe I was drugged."

He explained what had happened.

"Your cover can't keep messing with your duties," said Major Monogram when he'd finished. "If this keeps happening, we'll have to change you back and relocate you."

Perry felt his stomach drop, and he saluted. He'd be more careful in the future, for his own sake, and the sake of the Tri-State Area. He'd been lucky that Doofenshmirtz's plan for the day was so petty. He might not be so lucky next time.

.

Although he didn't want to admit it, Doofenshmirtz was getting very worried about Perry the Platypus. Maybe it was because he looked like a little boy now, but when Doofenshmirtz wasn't trapping him or shooting at him, he worried about his welfare. Perry the Platypus was being picked on by the kids at school, every day by the sounds of it. Doofenshmirtz had been bullied for his entire life, and it upset him to think of Perry the Platypus suffering the same problem. He always seemed so in control.

It had made him late for one nemesis confrontation, and miss another. Doofenshmirtz was glad that he didn't think of the girl he'd shared a rowboat with when his family had moved to Danville whenever he looked at the sky, but it was a hollow victory without thwarting Perry the Platypus's attempts to thwart him.

He couldn't just sit by and do nothing. He had to do something, and he had just the idea. Doofenshmirtz always took weekends off evil in spring to enjoy the weather, and because of his hayfever, so there was no chance of being interrupted by his nemesis until he was finished. Doofenshmirtz wanted to surprise him.


	8. World Tour

"Hey Perry, wake up!" said Phineas.

Perry opened his eyes slowly. He was lying on his stomach under the big tree in the backyard. The grass was beginning to leave an imprint on his hands, but he'd had a good, refreshing nap. Blocking out the construction noises had been easy; he'd been sleeping through similar noises since Phineas and Ferb had been old enough to hold a hammer. It was quiet now, though. Perry pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, then sat up, staring.

Perry had lived with Phineas and Ferb for a long time, and had been aware for a large portion of that time. He knew that he should be used to the boys' amazing creations by now, and yet somehow he never was. The zeppelin towered over them, the tree, and even the house. The envelope was bright white with Phineas and Ferb's faces on it, and the gondola underneath took up almost the entire yard. Its walls seemed to be made entirely of glass.

"Do you like it?" said Phineas.

Perry nodded. Even the bullies would have to be impressed by this.

.

A few of the bullies showed up for the first flight. More than Perry expected. Many of them he didn't recognise, but it was blindingly obvious just from their body language. The only jock in his grade to show up was Thompson, who kept looking around like he expected somebody to attack him.

Perry followed the kids inside. He didn't have a mission today, and now that he'd seen the zeppelin, he had to ride it. He had total confidence in the boys' abilities to keep a huge airship safely afloat, but all the same, he'd brought his parachute.

The doors closed, and Phineas said "Welcome, everyone, to the zeppelin world tour!"

World tour. Interesting.

Phineas held up a globe. "We'll be visiting, uh... Just kind of all over." He waved his hands around the globe. "Now remember, have fun, and bullying is banned. And.. that's about it. Hit it, Ferb!"

The zeppelin slowly rose into the air and began moving. They didn't seem to be going particularly fast, yet in five minutes Phineas announced that that they were in the Arctic. Perry stared out the window, fascinated. The ground below was carpeted with flowers, which surprised him. The view was particularly striking in contrast with the bright orange sky, but Perry ignored that detail. It just reminded him of his failure.

There were a few minor taunting incidents as they drifted south to the steppes of central Asia, all of which were quickly ended by Ferb's teleport gun. Perry assumed that it had sent the bullies back home. It was a good security measure, and one not likely to fail. Ferb was an exceptional shot. In fact, he was almost a match for Perry. But not quite.

Despite Phineas's claim, it seemed that they were going more or less straight. Perry didn't think they'd changed direction once. Eventually, the land ran out, and they were sailing over the Indian Ocean, then over Antarctica, which according to Phineas was the coldest and largest desert in the world.

It was quite loud in the zeppelin, with all the kids talking and laughing, but Perry kept his eyes on the snow covered ground below. He didn't feel like talking.

Soon they drifted over the Americas, returning home surprisingly quickly. The whole trip had taken just half an hour.

But the tour wasn't over yet. On Phineas's suggestion, Perry held onto the railing on the side. He didn't know what Phineas and Ferb were planning, but he was sure that it would be entertaining.

A second later, Perry felt like something was pressing him down into the floor, and he closed his eyes. He always closed them during a launch; the feeling of pressure made him feel sick. It was clear that they were launching somewhere, but where? He had an idea.

Eventually, the pressure began to slowly abate. Once it was gone, Perry opened his eyes again to see where they were. The ground below was grey, and it seemed to curve upwards as it approached the horizon. Perry ran to the opposite side of the gondola, easily dodging the kids in the way. It was the same over there. They were in a crater on the moon. Just as he'd thought.

Perry stared out the window and craned his neck, trying to see the planet they'd come from.

"This is amazing!" said the kid next to him.

Perry turned around. It was Thompson.

Thompson glanced at him, realised who he was talking to, and cringed backwards. "Don't hit me!"

Perry just continued to look at him. Why would he hit him? If he was going to, he would have done it before now.

Once he'd realised that Perry wasn't moving, Thompson said "Can I tell you a secret?"

Perry nodded cautiously.

Thompson looked around nervously, then lowered his voice. "I don't _like_ Brett and the other guys. They're always laughing at me and telling me to shut up. Sometimes... sometimes I wish I wasn't a jock. I know, I know, it's stupid! But they're jerks!" His voice was getting loud, but he didn't seem to notice. "I don't wanna be a nerd either, but I don't wanna be a jock. I want _real_ friends. Like you have."

Perry looked around. What? What friends?

"You know what?" Thompson continued. "I didn't even know I didn't wanna be a jock until I met you."

Perry really had no idea what Thompson was talking about. They barely knew each other.

"I don't know what to do!" said Thompson angrily. "Why can't I _choose_?"

Perry raised an eyebrow. Kids had weird ideas about their options sometimes.

"What?" said Thompson, seeing his expression. "You think I'm being stupid, don't you? I should just stay with the jocks. Right?"

Thompson wasn't going to get it unless Perry told him out loud. "You are not required to be in a clique."

Thompson wrinkled his forehead. "Uh... Huh?"

"You are not required to be in a clique," Perry repeated, wondering if he hadn't spoken clearly enough.

"I never thought of that..." said Thompson, still sounding confused. "Uh, thanks, Perry..."

He turned back to the view.

.

As soon as they landed back on Earth, Perry went back inside and started doing his homework. He didn't have time to ride around in the sky all day. He also kept an eye on how the tours were progressing. More and more of the kids from the cliques seemed to be arriving, and very few kids were sent back.

He didn't see Brett, but he didn't really expect to.

Once his hour of study was up, Perry decided that it was time to do something work-related. Doofenshmirtz didn't have any schemes for him to thwart, but he could at least destroy the photograph he'd taken from Irving. Perry reached into his pocket and felt around. There was his transformation pen... some small change... and nothing else.

Perry jumped up and searched his pocket again. Nothing. He removed the pen and money, and turned it inside out. Nothing. He was wearing the same pair of shorts as on Thursday, he knew he was, but the photo was gone.

Not caring much about looking suspicious, he ran to his room, grabbed his sleeping bag, turned it upside down, and shook it. He wore his pajamas to bed most of the time, but sometimes he took naps with his day clothes on. Maybe the photo could have fallen out then.

But it hadn't. Perry quickly searched the entire room. Still nothing. He had to hope that he'd lost it at home, and not at school or on the way home. Maybe somebody had found it, not known what it meant, and thrown it away. That was the best case scenario.

Perry ran outside, checked to make sure that Phineas and Ferb weren't around, and entered his base through the entrance at the side of the house. His base was pristine; obviously Carl had already cleaned it. And if he had, he would have found the picture, and Perry would definitely have heard about it by now. The photo was not in his base. Where else had he been since... He'd fought Doofenshmirtz, but if he'd dropped it then, it didn't need to be retrieved straight away. Perry was pretty sure Doofenshmirtz knew he was a secret agent.

.

The next morning, Perry took a long walk to the city. He was off the clock, so if he was lucky, there'd be no life-threatening danger today. He just needed to see if Doofenshmirtz had the photo.

He took the stairs up to the top floor of Doofenshmirtz's building, for two reasons. The first was for the exercise; he'd been neglecting his workouts lately. He could have blamed school, but he just didn't have as much time as he was used to, and he was managing it poorly. The other reason was that as much as he liked Linda, if he had to hear her song one more time, he might just claw out his ears.

Perry put on his hat and knocked on the door. Doofenshmirtz opened it. He was holding a screwdriver, which he quickly hid behind his back. "What? I'm not building anything!"

Perry looked at him blankly. He couldn't tell if this was suspicious behaviour or just Doofenshmirtz being Doofenshmirtz.

"Now what do you want, Perry the Platypus?"

Perry went in, keeping an eye out for anything that looked like a photo.

"Dr Doofenshmirtz, may I come in?" said Doofenshmirtz in a mocking, high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Perry. "Of course you can," he continued in his normal voice. "Thank you very much for not _barging in like you own the place_!"

Perry barely heard him. He didn't need distractions right now.

"What, did you... did you lose something?"

Perry glanced up and nodded. Then he lay on his stomach and looked under a partially disassembled -inator. Nothing.

"What?" said Doofenshmirtz, while Perry searched the balcony. "What did you lose? You... You gotta give me something to go on here."

Perry ignored him. He would have known it if he'd seen it.

It didn't take long before he'd searched the entire area in which Thursday's battle had taken place. Perry resigned himself to the fact that the photo wasn't there, and sat on the floor with his head in his hands. Where was it?

Perry felt a light touch on his shoulder, and he jumped up and whipped around.

Doofenshmirtz was standing with his hand in the air, looking uncomfortable.

They looked at each other.

Doofenshmirtz backed away. "Well- I- You looked so sad!" he said defensively.

Perry stared at him. He would not accept comfort from Doofenshmirtz. He would never accept comfort from Doofenshmirtz. But why had he come up here today? There'd been only a slim chance that the photo would be there. He'd known that. Perry rubbed his face. He didn't know what he was feeling anymore.

"Why worms?" he said suddenly.

Doofenshmirtz made a confused noise.

"I like worms. Doesn't make sense" continued Perry. He realised that he'd wanted to talk to somebody about this since Friday. It was a shame it had to be Doofenshmirtz, but he couldn't stop now. "They know I could take them if I wanted to. They still fed me worms. Doesn't make sense."

"Is this about the kids at school?" said Doofenshmirtz, in his Vanessa voice again.

Perry hesitated, then nodded. It was weird, but he was glad he'd said something. He couldn't understand why they bullies were doing what they were doing, and it really bothered him.

Doofenshmirtz didn't try to touch him again. He rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Well, uh... you know how kids are at that age, Perry the Platypus."

Perry nodded sadly. He did know.

"They... They don't do anything that makes sense. I mean, on Tuesday, the first thing, the very first thing you did was raid my fridge. I... I don't get it."

Perry had thought that was obvious. He'd been hungry, and when he was hungry, he made mistakes. And when he was on a mission, he couldn't afford to make mistakes. He'd paid Doofenshmirtz back for it, so he didn't see the problem.

"And then there was that time you put three sugars in your coffee. Three sugars! Who... I mean, who does that?"

Doofenshmirtz had obviously forgotten what he was talking about. It made Perry smile. Doofenshmirtz was so distractible. He was like a little kid.

"My advice, Perry the Platypus?" continued Doofenshmirtz. "Just forget 'em. You... You're way too busy to go around wondering why some platypus kid tied you up in a string of sausages when obviously you could eat right through them... I mean, I... I didn't, but they were _raw_ sausages. Have you ever tried raw sausages, Perry the Platypus?" Doofenshmirtz mimed sticking his fingers down his throat. "My mother used to serve it every Wednesday for dinner. We always got sick the next day... Never figured out why..."

Perry laughed out loud. No matter what happened, Doofenshmirtz would always be as idiotic as ever. It was strangely comforting.

Doofenshmirtz gasped. "Perry the Platypus, did... did you just laugh? You can laugh? Ugh, now I have to pay Monobrow fifteen bucks. That kind of cash... It doesn't grow on trees, you know."

Perry smiled, saluted, and left through the front door.

"Curse you, Perry the Platypus!"

Perry felt better than he had in days. 


	9. Undercover Doofenshmirtz

Doofenshmirtz parked his scooter a block away from the middle school, and took out his latest invention. Getting it to work had been easy. All he'd really had to do was reverse the polarity of one of his older inators. The hard part had been compressing the mechanisms to make it handheld. But he'd done it. Now who was the idiot? Not him.

Doofenshmirtz pointed it at himself, glanced at it to make sure it wasn't about to explode in his face again, and pulled the trigger.

Once his vision had cleared, he looked in a mirror and smiled. He looked... Doofenshmirtz screwed up his face in thought. He was horrible at judging ages. He looked... less than fifteen? However old he was, it would now be much easier to check up on Perry the Platypus without coming under investigation by the police or the FBI. And he'd learned a few things since he'd really been that age. Surely now that his stupid brother wasn't around to upstage him, he wasn't forced to wear dresses, he didn't smell of pork, and he didn't have to spend every night in the front garden, things would be different.

His back hurt, so he straightened up. His ex-wife had always bugged him about standing up straight, and it was as easy as building a device that transported his body back to a time when his posture was better. How ironic, or something.

Doofenshmirtz entered the school. He'd already organised to have his "son" attend for a while, and they'd assigned him classes and a homeroom. He hadn't moved to America until after he'd finished high school, but he understood that homerooms were something that American schools held at the start of every school day. He kept an eye out for Perry the Platypus while he tried to figure out where to go. So far he couldn't see anybody in a fedora.

Then he bumped into somebody. Doofenshmirtz opened his mouth to yell at the somebody for their clumsiness, then shut it again. The boy who'd jostled him was almost twice his size. Every childhood beating Doofenshmirtz had ever had flooded into his mind at once, and he couldn't say anything.

"Watch where you're going," grunted the boy. He looked angry.

Doofenshmirtz gathered his courage. He was a grown man, even if he didn't look like it at the moment, and he wasn't going to be pushed around by little kids anymore. "I'm sorry, I think you bumped into me." The pitch of his voice took him by surprise. "Is... Is that really what I sounded like?"

The boy frowned. "You can't even talk right."

"Can't even talk right... It's an accent, you buffoon!" said Doofenshmirtz, his fear forgotten. It was a free country. He could speak English any way he liked.

The boy effortlessly picked Doofenshmirtz up off the ground. "Are you calling me stupid?"

Doofenshmirtz laughed nervously. "Uh... no..."

The boy dropped him headfirst into a bin and walked off.

That... could have gone better. If even a responsible adult like him could get pushed around so easily, Perry the Platypus must have been having a terrible time. Doofenshmirtz tried to pull himself out of the bin, and quickly realised that he couldn't. "Arrgh!" He should have been grateful that the only things in there were sheets of paper. But he wasn't.

"Oh no," said a kid from somewhere nearby.

Someone grabbed his ankles and pulled him out.

"Are you okay, kid?" said the boy who'd spoken before. Doofenshmirtz stared at him. And he'd thought he had a triangular head. This kid's head was shaped like a Dorito.

"Uh... Y... Yeah," said Doofenshmirtz. He looked around for Perry the Platypus again. The triangle headed boy had a more rectangular boy with him who looked a bit like a platypus, but his hair was bright green, so it couldn't be him. Besides, he wasn't wearing a hat. "I'm Doc... I'm Heinz."

"I'm Phineas," said triangle boy. "And this is Ferb," he indicated the green haired boy "and this is... Hey, where'd he go?"

Doofenshmirtz looked around. Whoever this "he" was, he couldn't see him.

"Oh well," said Phineas. "Are you new here?"

"Yes, I..."

A bell rang, and Doofenshmirtz jumped. Back in Gimmelschtump they'd the school crier, who was usually the smallest and weakest kid. It had usually been him. The bell was jarring, and much louder than school bells were on TV.

"Oops, gotta go!" said Phineas. He and Ferb ran away.

Doofenshmirtz was still searching for his homeroom when a lasso encircled his waist and he was lifted into the air. "Ugh, _now_ what?" He looked up. He was being pulled towards the ceiling, where a tile was missing. "Uh, a little help?"

He was pulled into a cramped space in the ceiling, where he came face to face with an angry-looking Perry the Platypus, in platypus form. He was holding the handle of the winch that he'd used to pull Doofenshmirtz in.

"Oh... Perry the Platypus... H... Hello."

Perry the Platypus pointed at him with a scowl.

"Uh... You want to know where I got my outfit...?" guess Doofenshmirtz, before realising that that was probably not correct. Perry the Platypus didn't seem to be that into fashion. "No... You... wanna know what I'm doing here?"

Perry the Platypus indicated that he was correct.

Doofenshmirtz glared at him. "Well, for your information, mister, I came to check on you."

Perry's eyes widened, like he hadn't expected that.

"You didn't even show up on Friday, I mean, I was worried about you."

There was a brief pause. Perry the Platypus looked like he was thinking it over. He still looked freaked out. He seemed to come to a decision, and pulled out a pen and paper, securing the winch with his foot. He scribbled a note and showed it to Doofenshmirtz. It read: 'DON'T BLOW MY COVER', and it had been underlined three times.

"Blow your cover?" repeated Doofenshmirtz. "What are you...!" Perry the Platypus had let go of the winch, causing Doofenshmirtz to fall back down to the floor.

Doofenshmirtz stood up, pulled the lasso off, and put one hand to his aching head. He had no idea what Perry the Platypus meant by blowing his cover. What cover? He wasn't undercover. That hat, that fierce glare, how could he fool anybody about who he was? It was-

"Why aren't you in class, young man?" said a severe voice.

Doofenshmirtz looked up to see an equally severe looking woman leaning over him. She had white hair done up in a bun, and she looked almost exactly like his kindergarten teacher. "Well, I'm new here, and I can't find my homeroom, so you see..."

She cut him off. "What's your room number?"

He told her haltingly. Not only did she look like his kindergarten teacher, but she was almost as scary.

She pointed across the hall. "It's over there. Don't let it happen again."

"Y... Yes, ma'am," said Doofenshmirtz, almost running to escape from her.

.

Although he had bigger problems now, Perry couldn't help noticing that the groups had broken up a little. He guessed that it was the awesome power of zeppelins.

Actually, he couldn't think of a serious reason for it, other than the normal "Phineas and Ferb are magic" explanation. This was why he was an agent, not a child psychologist. He wasn't sure if it was possible for a platypus to be a child psychologist, but if it was, he was glad that he had not chosen that career path.

He kept a particular eye on the jocks, and although the amount that hung around together fluctuated, on average the groups were definitely smaller. He needed to count to get an accurate idea. All right.

Perry closed his eyes and listed all the jocks to himself, putting a finger up for each one. Once he was finished, every finger on both hands was extended. Two hands. That was the number eight. He fixed the word "eight" in his mind, put down his fingers, and put up one finger for every boy he'd seen with the jocks more often than not today. He ended up with one hand and one finger. That was five. He put up eight fingers again and counted to five, putting down one finger for every number. He ended up with three fingers. So, three. There were three less boys than before. That was good.

Maybe they wouldn't try to pick on him so much now. Between Linda making him promise not to fight and Major Monogram ordering him not to let them interfere with his duty, he didn't know what he could do. Maybe throw Doofenshmirtz at them and run away. Perry smirked at the thought. Tempting.

Doofenshmirtz. What was he doing there? Perry wanted to think that he didn't believe his story for a second, but this kind of lie wasn't his style at all. Maybe he really was worried about him. It was almost gratifying, as misguided as it was, but it was also dangerous. He had to report him. He couldn't let his worst enemy discover his identity. But... Was it really worth reporting? Of course it was, but what if Major Monogram decided that there was too much risk and had him relocated? Doofenshmirtz might not figure out who he was. He was horrible at recognising Perry without his hat. Maybe he'd get bored and go away if he laid low for long enough.

It was dangerous and a bit stupid. But he had to hope.

.

Doofenshmirtz made it to lunch without getting even a glimpse of Perry the Platypus. If he hadn't met him in the ceiling, he would have doubted that he was even there. He sat at an empty table and ate a sandwich, keeping an eye out for any fedora wearing secret agents. So far he couldn't see anyone who fit that description.

"Hey, Heinz!"

Doofenshmirtz looked around. It was the triangle headed boy, Phineas, again.

"Why don't you sit with us?" said Phineas.

Doofenshmirtz looked around. He wasn't the only one sitting alone. "Uh... Okay." Maybe they knew something about Perry the Platypus.

He stood up and moved to their table, sitting next to a sleepy looking boy with a teal coloured outfit and matching hair. He was a bit on the short side, dark skinned, and rectangular, and almost looked like Perry the Platypus, except he wasn't wearing a hat. Doofenshmirtz tore his gaze away from the boy and laughed nervously. There were quite a few people at the table. This Phineas kid must have been popular. As well as Phineas, Ferb and the sleepy boy, there was a dark haired, confident-looking girl sitting next Phineas, a big, tough looking boy who made Doofenshmirtz want to run away and hide, a small, nervous looking boy with dark skin, and a red-haired bespectacled boy whose eager expression gave Doofenshmirtz the creeps.

He kept eating and listened to their conversation.

Phineas was telling a story about being stuck in a zeppelin that was flying too low over the Himalayas. At first Doofenshmirtz dismissed it as imagination, but either they had bigger imaginations than any kids he'd ever met, or it had really happened.

"Hang on," he interrupted. "You... You actually built a zeppelin your backyard?" It wasn't impossible, but he thought they were a little young for that.

"Yes," said Phineas. "Yes we did."

Actually, it was nearly impossible. To make the kind of airship Phineas described, they needed a type of industrial grade plastic that required multiple levels of clearance to even get near someone who might know someone who provided it. He mentioned this.

"We thought so too, but Ferb figured out a way around it."

Ferb, who for some reason was British - Doofenshmirtz had assumed that he was Phineas's brother, but maybe not? - launched into a technical and very interesting explanation of how they'd done it.

Once he'd finished, Doofenshmirtz nodded. He wasn't going to admit to them, but it was a very clever solution. He might need it some time. "You know, I'm... I mean, I want to be an... uh, inventor. You know, when I... When I grow up."

"Really?" said Phineas. "That's awesome! Wanna come to our house and check out some of our old blueprints? Ferb and I always have time for a fellow inventor!"

"Well..." said Doofenshmirtz. They were smart kids, and they probably had some great ideas he could take credit for. But he wasn't sure how long the Age-Decceleratorinator lasted, and he always had a evil scheme in the afternoon. Then he started to wonder if he should really call it the Age-Decceleratorinator. It reversed age, it didn't slow it down. Why had he come up with that name for it? It was stupid.

"No!"

Doofenshmirtz looked around wildly, thinking that Perry the Platypus had spoken, but it was just the sleepy boy.

"What's wrong, boy? Do you know him?" said Phineas.

"That's still a little weird," said the tough looking boy. When they all looked at him, he added, "You know. The way you talk to him."

Phineas shrugged. "He was our pet platypus."

The sleepy boy closed his eyes for a little bit too long to have been blinking.

This kid used to be a platypus too? That explained why he looked so much like Perry the Platypus. All platypuses looked alike, really. Strange that there were two or more ex-platypuses in this school. It couldn't be that common. Obviously this one couldn't be Perry the Platypus, because Doofenshmirtz could not picture him as a pet. He clearly had too much pride for that.

Didn't he? Of course he did. Too much pride. Yes. Unless it was a cover story...

Doofenshmirtz slowly turned to look at the boy again. He put his hand up so that he couldn't see the top half of the boy's head, and stared, pretending he was wearing a hat. "Aha!" he said, more loudly than he'd intended. The rest of the table turned and stared at him.

"You do know Perry, don't you?" said Phineas.

"Uh, well..." said Doofenshmirtz. He could tell them that he was a secret agent, but then they might ask how he knew that, and then something would slip out, and then there'd be confrontation and probably arrest. "We met at the, uh... the park." Besides, he was there to help Perry the Platypus, not ruin his life. He could do that later. And then maybe he'd have no place to go but Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated, and they could sit and watch reruns of formulaic sitcoms all day long and... his revenge fantasies needed work.

"Yes. The park," said Perry the Platypus, nodding. "He's a bad person," he added.

"He doesn't seem so bad," said the dark haired girl.

Doofenshmirtz laughed nervously again. Normally he'd be worried about maintaining his evil image, but it probably wasn't a good idea to upset the group that Perry the Platypus hung around with. "I'm maybe a little... morally ambiguous. You know how it is."

"Not... really..." said the girl.

Doofenshmirtz decided to shut up until somebody changed the subject. He knew he had a tendency to ramble on and reveal important information without meaning to, like his PIN and his mother's maiden name. Maybe he shouldn't do that.

He wondered if Perry the Platypus had to think like that all the time.


	10. Worry

Perry knew that he was in English class only because he always had English class on Mondays at that time. He didn't know what he was supposed to be doing, and he didn't remember anything that had happened. At one point he was called on and gave an answer, but even as he said it, he couldn't remember what it had been.

His cover was blown. Doofenshmirtz knew who he was. He was surprised and gratified that he hadn't told the boys, but it wasn't much of a comfort. He was going to have to report this, then he was going to have to leave. He did not want to leave.

By the end of the class, Perry had come to a desperate decision. He sought Doofenshmirtz out in the halls, grabbed his arm and whispered, "I won't report you if you erase your memory."

Doofenshmirtz stared at him with big, childish eyes, and said "I... I don't understand."

Perry rolled his eyes. He knew he'd spoken understandably. "I am required to report you." he whispered. "If I do, you will be arrested and I will be relocated. Erase your memory."

"But..."

"Hey worm-breath, why don't you introduce us to your boyfriend?" It was Brett, with two of his friends.

Perry groaned. Not here, not now, he couldn't deal with this now. And the idea of Doofenshmirtz being his boyfriend was too disgusting to think about.

"Ew!" said Doofenshmirtz, looking around at them. "No! Ugh!"

"Are you sure?" said Brett. He smirked. "It looked to me like he had his tongue in your ear."

"We were having a _private_ conversation," said Doofenshmirtz, scowling at them.

"I bet he'd like to get you in private," said Brett, while his friends sniggered.

"What?" said Doofenshmirtz. "That doesn't make... Oh wait. Now I get it. Very funny."

Brett moved closer. "You thought we wouldn't get it?" he said to Perry. "You looked mad. You were telling him to go away before anyone figured it out, right? Little lovers' spat?"

Perry glared. "That's not how I know him." One on hand, he was glad that Brett hadn't realised the truth, but on the other, he wanted to vomit.

"Hey, wait a second!" said Doofenshmirtz. "I know who you are! You're those boys who've been bullying Perry the Platypus!"

Perry smacked himself in the forehead. Shut up, Doofenshmirtz.

Brett sneered. "Oh look, he went crying to his boyfriend. What a little sissy."

His friends laughed again.

Suddenly, Brett shoved Perry against a locker. "You took away my friends."

Perry wondered whether or not to struggle. His mission wouldn't be for a while, if it happened at all with Doofenshmirtz like this, so cooperating probably wouldn't endanger it.

"How did he...?" began Doofenshmirtz.

"I lost them from your gay zeppelin rides!" Brett yelled, shaking Perry by the collar.

"I'm sorry," said Perry. They weren't his zeppelin rides and as far as he knew they had no sexuality at all, but if Brett's rage was directed at him and not Phineas and Ferb, then it was for the best.

"You'll be a lot sorrier," said Brett. He let Perry go and walked away. "Watch your back."

Doofenshmirtz stared after them. "What strange boys," he said to Perry. "Anyway, where were we? Something about memory or something?"

Perry tried to put that incident and the boyfriend comment out of his mind. "Erase your memory or I will report you," he reiterated. It was a simple bargain that benefited both of them. He didn't see what was so hard to understand.

Doofenshmirtz backed away. "Now, c-can't we talk about this, Perry the Platypus? How about... How about... Compromise! I stay for a week, then I erase my memory. You trust me, right?"

Perry didn't dignify that with an answer.

"No, I-I mean it!" said Doofenshmirtz. "I won't tell anyone who you are, and on Friday I'll erase my memory." He held out a pinky. "Pinky swear?"

Perry sighed. Knowing Doofenshmirtz, that was as good as he was going to get from him. He locked his pinky with Doofenshmirtz's.

"Oh, and uh... Perry the Platypus," continued Doofenshmirtz. "It's a bit embarrassing, but don't... don't bother showing up this afternoon. I spent so long planning this that I don't really have anything else prepared, and..."

Perry kept his face impassive. He was probably lying, and even if he wasn't, Perry would still go. Just to keep an eye on him.

.

That night, Perry sat on his sleeping bag, practising the presentation he'd be making the next day in science class. He hated talking in front of people. It was nerve-wracking enough speaking to one or two people. But he'd been told to do it, so he'd do it.

Doofenshmirtz had been his normal, adult self that afternoon, but he'd been telling the truth about not having a scheme. So they'd just watched TV together, until Doofenshmirtz's favourite soap opera had been pre-empted, at which point he'd manacled Perry to his chair and gone on a set-destroying rampage. The normality of the afternoon had cheered Perry up a little.

Then he'd got home, and all his worries had fallen back on top of him.

"Cobalt is the 28th element in the periodic table," said Perry slowly. He'd be marked down unless he could learn to say this clearly. "Pure cobalt does not naturally occur anywhere on Earth."

What if Doofenshmirtz was in his science class?

"Cobalt has been known since prehistoric times, however, it was not known as an element until 1375... until 1735."

The thought of Doofenshmirtz watching him struggle through the presentation was not pleasant.

"There is a colour called cobalt as well which is blue, but pure cobalt is in fact silvery."

He'd probably make fun of him for it all week, or even longer if he broke his promise. Perry didn't think he would, though. Pinky swears were bonds.

"The crystallised form of cobalt is an important component of death rays and shrink rays."

Would Doofenshmirtz realise that Perry only knew that one because of him?

Perry put down the paper, shook his head, and smirked at himself. He was being stupid. Who cared what Doofenshmirtz thought? He was an idiot. Being at his school wouldn't change that. An idiot. It didn't matter what he thought.

He had the feeling he was being watched, so he looked up. Ferb was standing in the door, in his pajamas.

"It's the 27th element, actually," said Ferb.

Perry glanced down at his sheet of paper, took a pencil, and fixed the number. "Thank you."

Ferb came in and sat down next to Perry.

Perry kept practicing his speech. He was glad to live with someone who understood that it wasn't necessary to talk all the time. Most people never shut up.

After Perry's third run-through, he noticed Ferb looking at him thoughtfully, and raised an eyebrow. There was obviously something on his mind.

Ferb cleared his throat. "You're worried about your friend, aren't you?"

Worried? Why would anyone think he was worried? Perry noticed that he was twisting the edge of his sleeping bag in one hand, and forced himself to let go. "He's not my friend. He... I don't really know him."

Ferb narrowed his eyes a bit, obviously aware that Perry was lying. How? Perry's body language had given nothing away. "Then how did you pick up his accent?"

Perry went cold. If anybody other than Ferb had made that claim, he would have dismissed it, but Ferb was the most perceptive person he'd ever met. As far as he knew, his accent was mostly American, with some British pronunciations he'd picked up from living with Ferb and Lawrence for so long. And that was all. He never spoke like Doofenshmirtz. That was ridiculous.

"You sound more like him the more emotional you get," added Ferb. He had an engrossed look on his face, the way he looked when he when he was having trouble making up his mind about something.

Perry shook his head, self-conscious about speaking in case Ferb was right.

Ferb abruptly turned away and began rummaging through his drawers.

Perry waited. Ferb wouldn't leave it at that. Perry knew him.

Ferb found what he was looking for at the very bottom of the drawer, and gave it to Perry. It was a folder full of paper.

Perry opened the folder, flipped through it, and began to shake. He looked up at Ferb with his eyes wide.

It contained a series of notes written in Ferb's handwriting. At first they'd been speculating on why there was a secret base under the house, but after a few pages of detective work, he'd come to the correct conclusion.

Ferb directed Perry's attention to a couple of sentences about two thirds of the way through.

It read _Secret - Why?_, and then _Bad reason - unlikely. Trust him._

Ferb's shorthand was hard to understand, but the "him" could only be Perry. Ferb knew what Perry was keeping from him, and trusted that he had a good reason for it. Most of the pages were dated the last summer, so Ferb had known for a while, but didn't seem to have told anyone. Could he still keep the secret? It was Perry's only hope.

Perry looked at Ferb, not wanting to say anything. The room was often monitored. Perry wondered if Ferb knew that as well.

Ferb blinked at him, then turned to the last page.

It was dated that day, and read _HD at school. Lied about true age and acquaintance with P. ? No danger as long as long as P is with HD_

Perry closed the folder and dropped it, unable to stop trembling. He stared at Ferb. Even if he didn't tell anyone, it was an unacceptable security leak and needed to be reported. He was willing to report Doofenshmirtz if he really had to, but he didn't want to report Ferb.

Ferb patted him on the shoulder consolingly, but he didn't understand. Did he realise what he'd done? Perry would have to leave now. Forever. He felt his eyes well up, and forced the tears back. He couldn't cry in front of Ferb.

Ferb tapped the paper, and Perry looked at where he was pointing.

_No danger as long as long as P is with HD._

Ferb seemed to think that Perry could handle the Doofenshmirtz situation, and was trying to make him feel better by telling him so. It was possible that Perry did feel better about that, but he couldn't tell. He was too worried about the Ferb situation.

He couldn't report him right now. He couldn't. So he gave Ferb a thumbs up, smiled shakily, and went back to his homework.

.

(I'm not making fun of Perry/Doofenshmirtz, this is just how I think a Perry who wasn't in love with Doofenshmirtz would react to the idea. I think he doesn't think too hard about all the couple-looking stuff they keep doing.)


	11. Stress

(Homophobic slur again)

.

Perry awoke the next morning feeling calm and peaceful. Then the events of the past week came back to him and he chattered quietly, curling into the tightest ball he could. Maybe he could just not get out of bed today. That would solve all his problems.

No. Running away never solved anything. He'd watched enough TV and read enough books to know that. With an effort, Perry got up onto his hands and knees. Okay. Now he had to stand on two legs. Humans didn't like it when other humans went on all fours, and he needed to be able to use his hands.

Perry never thought this way anymore, he realised. He'd go used to perpetual bipedalism months ago. What was happening to him?

He forced himself to stand up, wobbled, tried to steady himself by adjusting his tail, and fell forward.

"Perry?" said Phineas, poking his head over the foot of his bed. "Are you okay?"

Perry smiled, nodded unconvincingly, and pulled himself up using the foot of Ferb's bed. This time, he didn't fall.

.

Perry swished his cereal around and around. He was reluctant to put it in his mouth because he was having trouble swallowing. It was the same wheat and fruit concoction he normally had, but he could not get it down. He needed to swallow it. It was vital that he ate well. He would have kept eating nutritious platypus food if Linda hadn't forbidden him. That would have been easier to swallow.

Phineas said "Mom? I think Perry's sick."

Perry did his best to not look sick, but ruined the effect by dropping his spoon into the bowl. He fished around for it and said "I am fine."

Linda looked at him. "Maybe you better stay home from school today, Perry," she said, after studying his face.

"I have a presentation," protested Perry. So he was a bit dizzy and light-headed. So his eyes were pointing in completely different directions. He could focus them any time he wanted. He just didn't feel like it.

"I'm sure you can do your presentation some other time," said Linda. "Listen to yourself, they wouldn't even understand you."

Perry guessed that he hadn't been speaking very clearly. But Linda's concern was still sadly misplaced. "I have to go."

Linda lost patience. "Perry Flynn-Fletcher, you are not going to school today!"

Perry wished he could tell her that he was an adult who could make his own decisions. But even if it wouldn't compromise his cover, he knew she wouldn't believe him. She seemed to have a bizarrely low opinion of his ability to care for himself. "I am sure that I am well enough."

"Riiiight," said Linda. "Isn't that what you said a couple months ago about going to the store when you were running a fever?"

Perry rolled his eyes. He would never have told her about that fainting spell if he'd known she'd overreact so badly.

"I saw that, Perry," said Linda warningly. She felt his forehead. "Hmm, you're not warm. Are you stressed?"

"He is," said Ferb.

Perry looked at Ferb. He wasn't helping.

"I'll make you some kava," said Linda. "It usually helps Candace relax."

"Yeah!" said Phineas. "You'll feel better in no time!" He looked over at Candace, who was frantically scribbling on a piece of paper. "Right, Candace?"

Candace shrieked and doubled her writing speed.

Perry gave up. He was sure he could go to school, but somehow he couldn't form the words in his head to argue. He let Linda take him back up the stairs, and just nodded when she told him to rest in a real bed.

He sat up in Phineas's bed for a while, reading a book and sipping the tea Linda had made for him. Soon he decided that he'd be more comfortable if he laid down.

.

Perry didn't wake up until the light from the window had begun to fade. Surprisingly, he did feel a bit better. If Doofenshmirtz had been going to do something, he would have done it by now, and Perry would have been alerted. Therefore, Doofenshmirtz wasn't going to do anything. And he didn't have to report Ferb. He wasn't going to report Doofenshmirtz, and Doofenshmirtz was far more dangerous than Ferb.

Perry had the feeling that his logic was flawed, but he didn't think too hard about it.

He tried to get up, but the sheets were so tangled that he could barely move. He must have been thrashing around in his sleep. Somehow he'd even tied a knot in them.

After a few minutes of careful struggling, Perry managed to extract himself. He made Phineas's bed as neatly as he could, and went into the living room, where Phineas and Ferb were watching TV. Phineas looked at him and grinned. "Hey, Perry! Feeling better?"

Perry nodded.

"Guess what?" added Phineas. "You just missed Heinz!"

Perry took a step back. Doofenshmirtz? Here? He didn't feel better anymore.

"I told him he shoulda woken you!" said Phineas, misinterpreting Perry's reaction. "He thought you'd be mad."

Doofenshmirtz was right, for once. Nothing would stop Perry from going to school tomorrow, if only to explain to Doofenshmirtz exactly what he'd done wrong. Preferably with his fists.

.

Doofenshmirtz entered the school, whistling to himself.

He hoped Perry the Platypus hadn't stayed home again like a gigantic Perry the Platy-wuss. He wanted to ask how long it had taken him to get out of bed the evening before. Oh, he was a master prankster.

His bruising from being blown up on Monday evening had begun to fade, the sky was still as orange as it had been on the day he'd fixed it, and he was beginning to get the hang of this kid thing. he'd been barely picked on at all yesterday. Yes, middle school really wasn't as bad as he remembered.

He was in the middle of that thought when somebody hit him hard on the head and stuffed him into a bag.

Perry sat in the library, reading a depressing novel. He hadn't seen Doofenshmirtz at all, and even though it was only second period, it gave him hope. Maybe he'd given up. Perry hadn't seen Brett either, and according to Phineas, he'd also been absent the day before. Maybe he'd got so frustrated that he'd left. Perry couldn't believe that, but he pretended that he did.

Buford had even come back. It felt like almost everything was back to normal, if normality was Perry being a human and a secret agent.

A paper aeroplane hit him on the head. He grabbed it, looked around for the thrower, and was about to crumple it up when he noticed the word "UNFOLD" written on the top. So he unfolded it. There was a message inside:

FAG  
I'VE GOT YOUR BOYFRIEND  
COME TO ROOM (6x(7-3)/8)+19  
COME ALONE

Perry put down his book and sighed. Of course Brett hadn't given up. Would he ever?

He should probably go check it out before Doofenshmirtz got another emotionally scarring backstory. Or hurt. So Perry pulled out his calculator and had another look at the numbers. It looked to be like some kind of sum. Or equation. Or something. He'd never seen parentheses used in math before. After some thought, the only conclusion he could come to was that it was supposed to be read in a different order. Math was weird.

Using the calculator and a pen and paper, Perry wrote out the sum a few times until it was one number. Then he did it again to make sure it was right. Then he did it from left to right a couple of times to test his guess about the function of the parentheses. Once he'd ascertained that there was probably no such room number as 23.875, he left the library for room 22.

.

Doofenshmirtz struggled a few times. "Well, I guess I have had worse days," he said to nobody. Yes, he'd definitely had worse days, and recently. But this one ranked pretty highly. Let's see... He was tied up... Nothing outstandingly bad there, and at least he hadn't been gagged... In a cauldron of water. Cold water, too. And he was wearing a dress. It was bright red. "You know, you could at least have picked a colour that matched my eyes," he said to Brett, who was staring intently at the door.

Brett turned to look at him. "What?" he snapped.

"The dress!" said Doofenshmirtz. "Red. Red, with blue eyes? Really?"

Brett stared at him for a few seconds. "Your eyes are brown," he said at last.

"No they are not!" protested Doofenshmirtz. "I think I know what colour my eyes are. They're blue." But just in case, he checked his reflection in the water.

A brown-eyed boy stared back at him, scowling.

Oh, right. His eyes had lightened over the years. He'd forgotten. "How embarrassing..." said Doofenshmirtz, laughing nervously.

"If only that was all you had to worry about," said Brett. "You're going to roast."

"Uh..." said Doofenshmirtz. He was sitting in a cauldron. "Meta... Metaphorically speaking, you mean?"

"You're going to be cooked alive," Brett clarified. "And your boyfriend is going to watch."

Not this again. "Look, you imbecile, I told you already. Perry the Platypus is not my boyfriend! I'm not gay! Well, maybe a little curious..."

Brett started to say something, but was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a platypus chattering.

Perry the Platypus stood in the doorway, with a furious expression on his face. For once, Doofenshmirtz was glad to see him. "Perry the Platypus! Get me out of here before this lunatic roasts me!"

Perry the Platypus started into the room, and at the same time Brett pulled a remote out of his pocket and pressed a button. Before Perry had time to move, four robot arms came out of nowhere and grabbed him. 


	12. Action

Perry tried to pull free, but the arms held him tight. His mind raced. This didn't make any sense. Why would Brett have supervillain equipment? He wasn't an evil mastermind bent on world domination. He was just a school bully.

"Those... Those robot arms look familiar..." said Doofenshmirtz.

Brett smirked. "They should... Doctor."

Perry widened his eyes and hoped he'd misunderstood. If Brett knew about that...

Oblivious, Doofenshmirtz replied "Oh, well, thank you, you know, not many people acknowledge..." Then realisation seemed to hit him. "Wait, what?"

Brett approached the arms. Perry glared. A few steps closer, and he could bite him. "You're trying to figure out how to weasel out of this, aren't you? After all, that's your speciality... Agent P." Brett smirked again.

Perry continued to glare, though he could feel the blood drain from his face. How did he know? Had he told anybody? Could he contain this? Why was Doofenshmirtz in a cauldron?

Perry's last question was answered when Brett turned a switch on the cauldron. "It'll take a while to heat up. In the meantime, let's talk about secret identities."

Heat up? Either he was trying to give Doofenshmirtz a bath, or he was trying to kill him. Perry strained against the arms. He had his disagreements with his nemesis, but he didn't deserve death. He hadn't even done anything wrong today! Probably.

Brett held up a photo. He was holding it at a weird angle so it was visible to Doofenshmirtz as well, but Perry could see enough to know what it was. It was the picture he'd taken from Irving. "I found this in your pocket Friday after you passed out like a spaz," he said to Perry. "It got me thinking that maybe there was a reason you were wearing that secret agent outfit. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The constant disappearances. The..." Brett seemed reluctant to continue. "kinda okay fighting. That face you're making right now."

Perry felt self-conscious for a second and frowned, then went back to glaring.

"So I looked through the phonebook and found an secret spy agency right here in Danville. Asked the leader some questions." Brett started to laugh. "I told him I was doing a school assignment! Would you believe the idiot told me everything I wanted to know? What a retard!"

Perry narrowed his eyes. Nobody was allowed to make fun of Major Monogram but him. And Carl. And Agent W - Perry didn't know his real name. The point was, you were only allowed to make fun of Major Monogram if you worked for him.

"So I took the day off school yesterday and went into town." Brett glanced at Doofenshmirtz. "I... found some stuff. And here we are."

"Uh... let's.. let's get one thing straight," said Doofenshmirtz, his voice fluctuating weirdly between his high pitched child's voice and his slightly deeper adult's voice. "Those arms... They're my robot arms?"

"Sad that I took them?" said Brett. "Gonna cry now?"

"I... No, I was just checking," said Doofenshmirtz. He seemed to have something on his mind. "So... like I was saying, when you said you were going to cook me alive, you meant... metaphorically cook me alive, right?"

"No!" yelled Brett, stamping towards him. "You're gonna die! The water will boil, and you'll die!" He visibly composed himself. "But don't worry, I won't hurt your boyfriend. I always wanted a pet platypus."

Perry rolled his eyes. He'd gathered that humans thought being a pet was humiliating, but it was different for platypuses. Perry didn't care as long as it was someone he liked. If Brett tried it, he'd just get beaten up and arrested.

"Hah!" said Doofenshmirtz. "Perry the Platypus could defeat you even if you turned him into a worm! Trust me, I've... I've tried it."

Brett glanced at Perry, then said "Neither of you understand." He indicated the robot arms. "They aren't the only thing I borrowed. I also found something called a Devolitionator, and if that doesn't work, I have a Slaveinator, and if that doesn't work, I'll try the Turn-Everything-Evilinator."

Doofenshmirtz looked over at Perry. "I never noticed how many mind control devices I created, did you, Perry the Platypus?"

Perry barely heard. His thoughts were racing again. He'd underestimated Brett dangerously. The elaborate scheme, the trap, the murder attempt, the brief spurt of rage... Brett wasn't a _future_ supervillain at all. There was a way to get out of everything, but if Perry didn't figure out what it was in time, a currently innocent person would die. Perry didn't want that. He'd be rescued from the mind control eventually, but you couldn't bring back the dead.

Brett put a finger in the water. "Feeling a bit warm, Doctor?"

Doofenshmirtz looked at him. "Well, yes, now that you mention it..."

"You don't have long to live," Brett mocked. "Isn't there something you want to say to your boyfriend while you still can?"

Doofenshmirtz said nothing. Neither did Perry.

"Don't you want to kiss him one last time?" said Brett. He took out the remote again and moved a joystick, causing the arms holding Perry to come up close to Doofenshmirtz. "Go on. Kiss. You'll never get another chance."

Doofenshmirtz looked at Perry.

Perry looked at Doofenshmirtz.

"Vanessa," said Doofenshmirtz clearly, in his adult voice.

The arms released Perry and he dropped to the ground. Without bothering to wonder what had just happened, Perry put on his hat and leapt at Brett. No more holding back. It was time to take care of him once and for all.

"I suppose you're wondering what just happened," said Doofenshmirtz.

Perry only got to punch Brett once before Brett managed to pin him down.

"You see, I kept getting caught in my own traps, over and over and over - It's still not clever, you know! - so... so I stood up and said 'no more!'. Metaphorically. I didn't literally stand up and..."

Perry kneed Brett in the stomach and scrambled out from under him. They sprung apart. Perry was feeling pretty confident until Brett pulled a knife.

Doofenshmirtz finally got to the point. "I added an emergency release password to every single one of my traps. And that was not easy, let me tell you."

Perry picked up a jar from a shelf and hurled it where Brett's knife hand was going to be.

"It's keyed to my voice, so don't you try it, Perry the Platypus."

The jar hit. Impressively, Brett didn't drop the knife, but his grip weakened for long enough for Perry to jump in and wrestle it off him.

"Pretty clever, don't you think?"

Perry held the knife with the tip pointing at Brett's throat.

Brett looked into Perry's eyes. "You wouldn't." He sounded pretty confident.

Probably because he was right. Oh well. Without lowering his guard, Perry removed the knife.

"Um, hello?" said Doofenshmirtz, who had a definite red tinge to his skin now. "Getting a little hot in here..." Between the red of his skin and the red of the dress, he was starting to look like a giant tomato.

Brett took a swing at Perry, but Perry was already on the other side of the room, behind the cauldron. With some difficulty, he pushed it over, and all the water spilled onto the carpet. So did Doofenshmirtz. With one stroke, Perry used the knife to cut Doofenshmirtz's bonds.

Doofenshmirtz fell onto his hands and knees and coughed.

Perry ducked an attack from Brent, made a lasso from the rope, and twirled it around his head.

Brett advanced cautiously.  
Perry threw the lasso and Brett tossed himself to one side. Good. Perry had hoped for that. The lasso encircled Brett perfectly, exactly where Perry had aimed. Perry pulled the lasso tight and used the remaining rope to tie Brett up.

Doofenshmirtz stood up. "We did it!" He walked up close to Brett, but not too close. "You see what happens when you meddle in adult affairs?" He was all evil taunts now that Brett had been neutralised.

Brett responded with profanity.

Doofenshmirtz hesitated. "Not _quite_ what I would have said..."

Perry found his communicator and called Major Monogram. Brett was too dangerous to be allowed to go free. He was a minor, so maybe he could be rehabilitated.

Major Monogram came up on the screen. "What's going on, Agent P? Shouldn't you be in school?"

Perry showed him the room.

"Who is..." began Major Monogram. "Hey, it's the assignment kid! Why is he tied up?"

Doofenshmirtz snatched the communicator off Perry. "He was looking for Perry the Platypus's secret identity, you incompetent!" Doofenshmirtz calling anyone else incompetent, even Major Monogram. That was funny.

There was a brief pause.

"Dr Doofenshmirtz, is that you? Why are you a little kid?"

Doofenshmirtz looked nervous. "Well, it's a long story..."

"And why are you wearing that dress?" Major Monogram paused again. "Matches your eyes, though."

"Yes, I suppose it does..."

Perry snatched the communicator back and reported what had happened. Major Monogram promised to send someone over right away, which translated from Monogram speak meant that there'd probably be someone over by the end of the day. Maybe.

While they waited, Perry kept an eye on Brett, while Doofenshmirtz changed back into his clothes. He did this out of Perry's field of vision, and Perry was glad. He'd seen Doofenshmirtz in his underwear more times than he was comfortable.

Not long after that, a team of elite SSNN soldiers rushed into the room. One stopped in front of Perry and saluted.

Perry saluted back.

"We have evacuated the school. Do you need him" - he pointed to Doofenshmirtz - "removed, or just him?" He pointed to Brett.

Perry wanted to roll his eyes. Evacuated the school? Panicked everybody? Typical musclebound rockheads. But he just said "I'll take care of Doofenshmirtz."

The leader saluted again, and they grabbed Brett and dragged him out of the room.

Perry removed his hat and gestured for Doofenshmirtz to follow him.

"What does that mean, you'll take care of me?" said Doofenshmirtz, trailing behind him.

Perry didn't reply.

The students had been evacuated to the basketball courts. As soon as Perry reached the court, Phineas and Ferb ran over and hugged him.

"Perry!" said Phineas. "You're okay!"

Perry smiled. They'd obviously been worried about him. He appreciated it.

Phineas broke the hug and looked over the top of Perry's head. "I'm glad you're okay too, Heinz."

Doofenshmirtz looked confused.

"Are classes cancelled?" said Perry. He guessed that a few students had left in the confusion already. "I should help Heinz pack."

"Help me pack?" repeated Doofenshmirtz. He was like a parrot today. "Why, where am I go- ow!"

Perry had stamped on his foot.

"Aw, you're leaving?" said Phineas. "But we were going to make a popcorn popping ray this afternoon!"

"Uh..." Doofenshmirtz faltered, probably because of the intense glare Perry had turned on him. Phineas was too trusting. It'd get him into trouble someday. "You see, I... I'd like to, but I... I have to... Perry the Platypus, that's very distracting!"

Perry narrowed his eyes further.

"Come on, Perry, lighten up!" said Phineas.

"He's a bad person," said Perry, but he couldn't bring himself to glare at Phineas.

"Sometimes even a bad person need to have fun," said Ferb.

Doofenshmirtz folded his arms childishly. "Yeah, Perry the Platypus, what he said!"

Perry sighed. He really did feel sorry for Doofenshmirtz sometimes. If he ever got the chance to enjoy himself, and it wasn't hurting anyone, then Perry might as well let him take it, even if it involved turning himself into a child because he was worried about his sworn enemy. Perry would just need to keep an eye on him.

The boys and Doofenshmirtz stopped looking at him and Perry almost relaxed, though he wouldn't be truly relaxed until Doofenshmirtz was gone.

Then he heard "have you boys ever heard of evil? It's... A couple of boys like you would..."

Perry hit him in the small of his back.

"Okay!" said Doofenshmirtz. "No evil!"

.

Doofenshmirtz took off the helmet. So that was where his missing week had gone. He didn't know why most of it had been in Perry the Platypus's perspective, but the Memory-Restorinator worked in strange ways.

He broke into one of his patent-pending evil smirks. Yes, he could use this.

.

(That's it. Thanks for reading! I might write a sequel following on from the last scene, but I might not. I haven't decided.)


End file.
